Mirror Mirror
by Richard Bachman
Summary: The lonely Drusilla brings a AU version of Spike into this dimension, just as our souled Spike returns to Sunnydale trying to make amends. Part 10; AU Spike and Dru wreck havoc in town, and our Spike gets blamed.
1. Watching you, watching me (teaser)

TITLE: "Mirror Mirror" (1/6?)  
  
AUTHOR: Richard Bachman  
  
EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com  
  
SITE: nope  
  
FEEDBACK: Oh Yes! Absolutely.  
  
DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine.  
  
RATING: NC-17 Humor/angst/some action, b'cause that's just what BtVS is nowadays, isn't it?  
  
PAIRING: B/S  
  
SUMMARY: Spike is back in town, ensouled, still chipped, and uncertain about how to deal with his love for the Slayer. Dru is also back in town, alone, still dangerously insane, and with a special wish of her own; to make the dark murderous knight that she had once created to return into her arms.  
  
WARNING: This fic describes scenes of torture, and is dark and angsty, the usual stuff really.  
  
THANKS: To anyone for reading my senseless dribble.  
  
CHARACTERS: This is my own pathetic attempt of how to let Buffy know what has happened to Spike and how she and the other Scoobies are gonna deal with it. And there is still that ugliness of the attempt to rape lingering around. Our Spikey will truly have to prove himself before he is even back at where he started in the beginning of S6. General cruelness to our fav vamp (Dru likes to play her bloody little games, so does Spike) and silliness ahead, you've been warned.  
  
CHAPTER 1: WATCHING YOU, WATCHING ME.  
  
PART 1  
  
Sunnydale, USA October 9th, 2002  
  
Sunnydale high school, rebuilt from scratch, and still the centre of sporadic incidences of death and mayhem, much to the courtesy of the mystic Hellmouth situated in the heart of the building. Two teenagers, a red haired girl with a cute freckled face and a handsome young man, dark, tall and tanned, were running through the corridors of the vacant building, their fast-paced footsteps echoing hectically, as they were running for their lives.  
  
" James! I can't! I can't run anymore! I need ---I need to breathe."  
  
The girl let go of her boyfriend's hand and collapsed, bending over with her hands on her knees while gasping for air. Her pretty face was a white sheet of fear. James snapped his head and gazed around nervously.  
  
"Come on! We can't slow down! They will find us."  
  
"I can't run anymore! I just can't! I'm so scared."  
  
"Come, give me your hand, I won't let them get you."  
  
With a soft whimper, the girl let herself be dragged back up and sprinted on her tired feet toward the stairs, heading for the main entrance. Her pulse was drumming maddeningly loud in her ears, and her lungs burnt with every breath she took.  
  
They ran down the stairs, and when the main hall with the large oaken doors appeared in their sight, the girl sighed with relief. The exit was so close now. They must be able to make it.  
  
James rushed down the last few steps, pulling on her hand since she was struggling with her own legs. It seemed as if they had turned against her, overwhelmed by her blind panic, turning even an everyday task as descending the stairs into a serious challenge.  
  
"Come on! We're almost there!"  
  
She had her eyes down on the steps for a second, averted from James, when it happened. A shadow appeared at her feet, and then there was the sound of tearing flesh. Her bare arm and white summer dress became covered with fine droplets of blood.  
  
She raised her head slowly, eyes wide with shock.  
  
James was still standing in front of her, holding her hand, but was unable to speak to her or even see her anymore. His tongue hung out, and his eyes were rolled back in his skull. There was a red, savage cut in his throat running from ear to ear. She swallowed a scream as she thought she could see his Adam's apple still moving.  
  
"Hey little girl." The voice of a man, low and dangerous, slightly lisping.  
  
"Wanna come with us now, or do we need to kill someone else you care for?"  
  
Finally she screamed, letting go of his hand, and James' mutilated body collapsed on the floor. Her mind was on the verge of breaking as she saw his murderer emerging out of the darkness. Features twisted into beastlike lumps, his mouth a red hole with rows of teeth, with blood - James' blood, she thought guiltily - trickling down the corner. Human-like in form, but he was absolutely no man.  
  
He was a vampire.  
  
There were more of them emerging, joining their leader like a pack of hungry wolfs. Circling around her, waiting impatiently and cruelly toying with her.  
  
"Isn't she nice, all distressed and dead scared. I love it when they cry. In fact, I love it so much that I can just snap her pretty little neck in two and drink from her like a red fountain."  
  
She whimpered and flinched as cold, rough fingers caressed her cheeks, and gasped in pain as they drew blood from her flawless skin with their talons.  
  
The grotesque hand that was torturing her retreated suddenly as the vampire in question was corrected by the leader with a slap on its head.  
  
"Hey! Don't let her bleed yet! She must be saved for the ritual. You don't wanna piss off the boss, do you?"  
  
"But she'll like it. She'll love the pretty colours that her intestines will make when they are sprawled all over the floor. She will love it so much that she will sing and dance on them."  
  
The leader of the pack growled. He paced toward the girl and grabbed her by the wrists, shaking her frail body vigorously as he addressed the minion.  
  
"Yeah right. She will be thrilled for a while till she remembers how you fucked up her plans and claws your eyes out. Honestly, I really don't know what the boss was thinking when she decided to made you one of us. Keep your hands off the girl, mush brains!"  
  
"Good advice. I would stick to it if I was you."  
  
The vampire turned his head and found a small form of a girl standing in the doorway, her hands resting on her hips, holding an armed crossbow against her thigh. There was a petite, confident smile on her lips.  
  
"Slayer." Whispered the demon.  
  
The smile on the girl's face became a mocking grin.  
  
"Not quite. More like the Slayer's sister."  
  
Dawn drew the crossbow and fired, the bolt hitting the vampire right in his heart and dusting him in front of the others' eyes.  
  
  
  
Bored now? Go bake a cake or something. Thrilled? On to part two! 


	2. Watching you, watching me I

CHAPTER 1: WATCHING YOU, WATCHING ME.  
  
PART 2  
  
"The Slayer is here! Guard the girl!"  
  
The minions gathered themselves around the weeping girl, one of them picked her up and dragged her down the stairs, heading for the door. Two of them launched themselves at Dawn, who was feverishly trying to reload her weapon.  
  
"Come on Slayer, I heard you were good, let's see what you got." The vampires were circling her warily, hungry for her blood. The yellow glow in their eyes calculating her moves.  
  
Dawn was starting to get nervous.  
  
"Hey! Just a minute here. The firing mechanism gets stuck."  
  
"Too bad."  
  
A crude grin, and the vampires attacked, using the opening that the girl had left unguarded with her obsessive fiddling with her busted weapon. Their fangs were barred, ready to rip out her throat.  
  
Dawn screamed.  
  
Then one of the vampires launching at her lost its head and exploded in a cloud of dust.  
  
"Geez, you guys are as dim as you are ugly! She just said that she wasn't the Slayer! For the sake of all your bloodthirsty pals that I've dusted, at least try to find out exactly what I look like so you can scuttle away on time."  
  
It might not have been that visible, but the teenager let out a sigh of relief.  
  
"Buffy, you're here! Quick, there are only four of them left now. And guess what, I've dusted one of them myself!" She gave her sister a huge proud grin.  
  
"Uh-huh, and you almost got yourself killed." Buffy snapped, and elbowed the second vampire attacking her from the side, swinging the axe that she held over her shoulders and decapitating the demon without even getting her eyes off her reckless little sister. "I thought we've agreed that you won't go out patrolling on your own! And what happened to your pretty promises that you're gonna spent more time studying? Aren't you supposed to be at home, preparing for your math test tomorrow?"  
  
Dawn sighed. "I was studying! Really! I was sitting in the library but then I heard these noises coming from the corridor. Turns out these guys were hunting here."  
  
The three remaining vamps were heading for the exit, dragging the girl along with them.  
  
"Hey! Where do you think you're going with her?"  
  
Buffy blocked their way, appearing out of the blue with her inhuman Slayer speed, and kicked the minion holding the girl right in its face. The demon staggered back, his hand covering his broken nose that filled his mouth with the taste of his own blood, and howled in rage.  
  
However, he didn't let go of his victim.  
  
The other two jumped in and attacked, more in desperate attempts to protect themselves than to uphold their prisoner, but vicious in their assaults nonetheless. Suddenly, Buffy found herself entangled in a fast moving web of arms and legs, fists and fangs, trying to trap her in its deadly grip. She dodged and turned, her lithe body filled with grace and speed. Then she attacked. She ran up against the wall, propelled herself forward and swirling in the air, kicked them full in their chests. They both fell down like timber trees.  
  
Like an ice dancer, she landed back on both feet, her pose solid as a rock.  
  
"Sssslayer!" Hissed the demon, holding on to the struggling girl.  
  
She turned around and met its cold yellow orbs, then was punished for her recklessness as the vampire hurled the smelly contents of a small bottle into her face.  
  
The liquid burnt on her skin and stung her eyes, forcing them to squint shut. For the first time since Willow went dark and had sworn that she would let the earth swallow her up again, Buffy felt panic coming up.  
  
"Get her! Rip her apart! NOW!!!"  
  
"Buffy!!"  
  
She rubbed in her eyes frantically, only to get the vicious sensation intensified and spread to her hands. Dawn reached out and grabbed her sister's arm, pulling her away just in time before a vampire could knock her down. However, she was unable to prevent the second vampire from grabbing her by her wrist.  
  
"Let's see if you're still so tough now, Slayer!"  
  
He twisted her arm; Buffy screamed and dropped her weapon.  
  
"Buffy! Let go of her!"  
  
Dawn saw a chance to pick up the axe, raised it over her slim shoulders, and put it down hard on the vamp's arm. The blade split its flesh, cutting the arm off.  
  
While the demon screamed in utter agony and rage, she pulled her sister away from him and run.  
  
"Come back, you savage little bitch!"  
  
They needed help. She needed to warn the others.  
  
Buffy can't fight them like this.  
  
Pulse racing, Dawn managed to reach the last few steps to the outlet, Buffy tailing along and holding on to her firmly.  
  
They almost made it when a crazed out vampire struck from the side and knocked down the teenager, hurling her to the ground while the axe was pulled out of her hands. He straddled her and tugged at the neckline of her sweater to reveal the pale skin of her neck.  
  
Buffy, captured in her own private darkness, felt Dawn's hand slip out of her own, followed by her desperate cries for help.  
  
"Dawn!" She clenched her fists in fear and anger, and punched around her, hitting nothing but air. The vampires, arrogant as no other breed of demon, realized that the odds were now turned against the Slayer and laughed loudly, mocking her disability to fight back and torturing her by aiming at her growing insecurity.  
  
"Slayer! You and that little bitch here are gonna pay for all the suffering that you have caused to my Sire. We will torture your bodies, slash your throats and drink deep in honour of her darkness."  
  
"Buffy!" Dawn was crying. "Buffy, help me!!"  
  
Buffy moved into the direction of Dawn's voice, only to be hit in her stomach as soon as she came close. Gritting her teeth, she struggled back up, but a second blow at the back of her neck sent her collapsing to the floor. What followed was a cascade of blows and kicks that rained on her body mercilessly, holding her back and weakening her dangerously.  
  
It only stopped when her beaten body was too feeble to put up any more resistance.  
  
"Dawn!" She whispered. "I swear, if you so much as touch her, I'm going to kill you. All of you."  
  
"Brave words of a fallen warrior bound to get slaughtered. How incredibly sad." The vampire walked up next to her, and grinned down evilly. "But not sad enough." He stepped on her useless arm, snapping her bones. Buffy cried out in agony.  
  
"It would be a pleasure to watch you die." He hissed, and closed his hands around her neck.  
  
"I rather watch you snuff it, *mate*."  
  
Before the vampire realized what had hit him, he was sent flying against the wall as a massive steel rod whacked him full in the head.  
  
  
  
Wanna read more about Dawn? Go find yourself another fic. Wanna get to the Spike part? On to part three! 


	3. Watching you, watching me II

CHAPTER 1: WATCHING YOU, WATCHING ME.  
  
PART 3  
  
There was a chilly breeze that entered the hallway, sweeping the ashes of the vamps dusted previously into the air. The demons looked at the man standing in front of the wounded slayer, holding up his weapon protectively, his ice blue eyes radiating with rage.  
  
"Try to come near her and I shove this through your thick, ugly skulls." His voice was soft, hardly more but a whisper, but sounded more dangerous then the hissing of a poisonous snake.  
  
The vampire who got Dawn pulled her up. The young girl struggled to free herself, but was harshly restrained with a painful jolt on her hair. The demon's action forced the girl to raise her chin and look up. Her tear- stained eyes grew wide as she recognized the man in front of her who was protecting her sister.  
  
"Spike? Spike! You're back!!"  
  
"Spike?" There was the tiniest vibe of joy sounding in the Slayer's voice as she spoke out his name, at least he hoped there was. It could also be that he had confused her frailty at the moment with her softer, more considerate side. He wasn't always right in guessing her moods.  
  
She fluttered her closed eyelids, struggling to remain conscious.  
  
"Spike, save Dawn. Don't let.anything happen to her."  
  
He crouched beside her, his hands ached to reach out and comfort her, but he didn't dare. He had to settle with easing her distress with words, instead. "Sure thing pet, don't worry. I'll get those wankers for you."  
  
The next demon that was foolish enough to charge at the blond vampire was impaled with the rod, as Spike drove the blunt weapon with such force through the flesh that it made a gaping hole in its chest, thrusting the dead, blackened heart out of the body before it turned into ashes.  
  
Turning around, he gazed up at the vampire holding Dawn, picking up the axe from the floor as he walked by. He tossed the axe around in the air, playing with the weapon with grace and confidence that its imposing effect on his opponent couldn't be missed. He traced the sharp edge of the blade with his thumb, drawing blood.  
  
As he halted in front of the cowering demon, he simply said three words.  
  
"Let her go."  
  
The demon didn't need to be told twice what to do. He dropped Dawn and fled, running for the big exit. Spike swirled around, and swung the axe above his head a few times, then launched it at the vampire. It hit him, cleaving his back in two, and the demon went down screaming.  
  
"Bugger. Lost yet another perfectly functional tool to pick your nasties' guts out with. When will I learn to take good care of my stuff."  
  
He hadn't even finished his sentence when he found himself buried in the arms of a thrilled teenager, crying her heart out against his shoulder in relief.  
  
The blond vampire tried to hold back the string of emotions that was threatening to overwhelm him, paralysing his body and clouding his judgement. Months had passed since the last time he was able to hold the lil' bit in his arms, and although his world had changed completely, missing her and Buffy were still the hardest thing to bear.  
  
Buffy.  
  
He gently pushed the sobbing Dawn off his shoulders and rushed over to the Slayer, who was still lying on the place where she was so brutally beaten. Her eyes were closed, her body limp. Dawn came to kneel beside him, and the young girl's face turned fearful.  
  
"Is she.?" Her voice trembled.  
  
"No, I can still hear her heart beat." He swallowed hard and clenched his fists, digging his nails deep into his flesh. "But she got trashed pretty bad. Go find a phone and call someone of the Scoobies. Willow or Giles. Tell them to hurry. I Stay here to keep an eye on your big sis and make sure the tosser who have done this to her doesn't walk from here unless carried away by the soddin wind."  
  
Dawn nodded silently, glanced once more at her sister's motionless face, and then rushed off into the building.  
  
Forcing himself to interrupt his watch over the wounded Slayer, Spike got up, and walked over to the foot of the staircase, where the last remaining demon holding the girl was still standing. He held her close to his body, and lovingly stroked her breasts, caressing her nipples through the thin fabric of her dress.  
  
The girl cried silently.  
  
As Spike was forced to watch how the demon harassed her, his throat slowly filled with the bitter taste of bile. The demon swayed his head, as if following music only preserved for him alone, as his monstrous features changed back into that of a young man.  
  
"Funny thing." The mad vampire said, and nibbled with his teeth on the neck of the girl. "Spike. You are Spike."  
  
"Yeah, and you are a really daft, perverted puke of a demon. Now let her go."  
  
Ignoring the blond vampire, the demon continued.  
  
"I don't understand this. She wants you. I heard that the stars wept when you left her and ripped out her heart to feed it to the dogs. Still, she call out your name. Heaven knows why. I'll move heaven and earth to full fill her every wish. But now, it turns out that you're not even lost."  
  
The blond vampire sighed, another dangerous nutcase that listened to the bright stars. Honestly, how many minds did Angelus screw up with his guerrilla warfare back in his days? With a little bit of luck, this wanker could be a lost member of the fine Aurelius clan.  
  
"Look, loopy brains, I'm gonna repeat my friendly request one more time, loud and clear, since you're such a special headcase. Let the girl go. Now!"  
  
The handsome, dark haired young man started to laugh, madly.  
  
"Bad greedy dog. You got two of the girls already. Now you want the last one too?" He traced with the back of his hand over her one cheek that carried the fresh scar of his previous sadistic caress. "You can't have her. This one is reserved for my dark queen. She is special. She has the sight."  
  
Spike studied the vampire cautiously. There was something awfully familiar in the way he spoke, moved and kept rambling at the brink of sanity. It reminded him of someone.  
  
"Drusilla." Spike whispered, her name haunting him and clasping his unbeating heart with icy hands.  
  
"My dark, murderous queen." The mad vampire muttered and closed his eyes as his tongue slipped over the flesh of the young girl, making her yelp in horror. "I can already taste her gratitude for bringing her this gift. She will let me bath in her light till my loins shudder and can take no more."  
  
"Enough. She won't be getting her." Spike raised his fists and gazed up at the vampire dangerously. "Whatever mad plan the bloody little pixies have whispered into her brains this time, it's not going to happen. I won't let it happen."  
  
The insane vampire's eyes twisted from longing and distant into cold and calculative. A crude grin appeared on his pale lips.  
  
"We shall see about that."  
  
  
  
Wanna know if Spike can save the girl? On to part four! 


	4. Watching you, watching me III

CHAPTER 1: WATCHING YOU, WATCHING ME.  
  
PART 4  
  
The vampire moved fast as lightening, dragging the girl with him as he rushed toward the door. For a mortal, this speed would have distracted the senses and made the demon appear like a blur, but to Spike, a master vampire compared to this fledgling, he moved hardly faster then a clumsy toddler. With a quick spin, he floored him, and the vampire landed with his back on the floor, while the hostage to whom he obsessively held on to screamed in his ears.  
  
"Shut up you silly little bitch! I can't work like this!"  
  
He slammed the head of the young girl against the tiled floor with a resounding crack, and her struggling body fell limp immediately, sagging to one side. The vampire leaped back up and tossed the unconscious girl behind him on the floor. When he met the cold gaze of Spike's blue eyes again, his features had morphed back into that of the hideous demon.  
  
"Be a nice Doggy and get out of my way, and I promise to let you have a treat."  
  
Spike snorted disgustedly.  
  
"I'm not like you. Not anymore."  
  
"So it appears."  
  
The demon lashed out, stomping Spike in his stomach. Then he tried a spinning kick, which Spike managed to block just in time. The blond vampire grabbed the demon's leg and twisted it, sending him rolling in air. However, the demon was ever so inventive despite his unsteady mind and kept spinning, raising his free leg and hitting Spike in his face. Spike staggered back and let go of his opponent. The demon grinned insanely at him as he leaped up and kicked him full in his chest, sending the blond vampire crashing into the walls.  
  
"Doggy got housebroken." The demon said mockingly. While Spike was pulling himself out of the rubble, the deranged creature strolled toward him on a leisurely pace, licking his fangs dangerously.  
  
"Doggy learned to be good. That's too bad." He smashed a fist through the weakened wall, tearing down the place on purpose so Spike had to shield himself from the falling bricks that threatened to bury him. "Now I'll have to beat Doggy back into his old nasty form again." With a firm jolt, the demon pulled a lead pipe out of the broken wall. Smirking devilishly, he brought it down on Spike's kneecap, evoking a painful howl out of his victim.  
  
"That's right, bark little Dog. That will teach you to be good."  
  
Just as he was about to strike again, Spike changed into game-face. The demon surfacing in him was enraged by the beatings its body had received previously and leaped back up, launching himself at the opponent with the bloodlust of a starving predator.  
  
Spike lashed out with his talons, wounding the demon's face, its flesh popping open along the line of the cut and staining its cheeks with droplets of crimson. Then, with one violent blow, he knocked the pipe out of the demon's hand.  
  
"Lead pipe out of the wall. That's smarts boy, but I invented that trick years ago."  
  
He punched a hole into the wall next to him, and without so much as breaking a sweat, he hauled out a heavy piece of stud that he swung at the younger vampire, smashing its face.  
  
"Come to think of it, I must still have the patent on this one." He spun the stud in hands, wielding it like a weapon. The younger demon followed his movements warily, calculating his odds to escape Spike's wrath.  
  
"Now let's see who's gonna win then, this gawky ol' mutt or you, the crackers male version of my ex."  
  
With an animalistic roar, he brought down the metal with rigorous strength, aiming at the demon's skull. The younger vampire tried to block, holding his pipe above his head to shield it while backing up at the same time. He did manage to keep his head safe, but the pipe couldn't hold the brute assault and broke in two. With two successive quick blows, Spike hit the metal remains right out of the demon's hands.  
  
Spike smirked slyly.  
  
"Seems like this ol'dog is gonna win."  
  
The younger demon rushed back to the unconscious girl and picked her up by the throat, holding her in front of his body as a human shield. He gazed up at Spike, who slowly approached, holding his weapon across his shoulder like a lady's parasol, a cocky smile on his lips.  
  
The master vampire was growing too confident.  
  
When Spike's opponent spoke, his voice stayed composed, as if he wasn't currently threatened by a elder vampire itching to drive a piece of metal through his heart at all.  
  
"You want this girl? You can have her."  
  
The demon hurled the girl toward him, and Spike dropped the thud in order to catch her, but he was deceived. The younger demon held on to his victim's arms and pulled her right back, while snapping the cap off another bottle that he had drawn out of his pockets with his free hand.  
  
Spike had less then a second to react.  
  
With deadly precision, the younger vampire splashed the contents of the second bottle on him. Spike evaded it just in time, and the appalling fluid burnt a sizzling hole on the ground where it fell. Seeing that he was distracted, the demon saw chance to surprise him with a painful upper cut, sending him to the floor.  
  
Spike landed with his back in the pool of acidic liquid, and it started to burn through his clothes instantly, blistering his skin. He struggled back up while screaming in pain, and removed his shirt that had partly melted into his flesh. As he pulled it over his head, the textile stripped parts of his skin right off.  
  
Then, his back started to smoke and burn.  
  
"Arghh! Bloody hell!"  
  
He tossed the smouldering piece of cloth away, as if handling a nest with angry hornets. Dawn, who had smashed in the security cabinet and lugged out the hose, came rushing over to the vampire and turned on the tap, splashing a powerful jet of ice-cold water on his bare chest.  
  
"Turn around! Your back is on fire!"  
  
He did just that, spinning around hectically in the steady stream till the pain of his tortured flesh was receding and all that was left was the numbing memory of defeat.  
  
When Dawn finally turned off the jet, Spike was almost too shameful to gaze her in the eyes.  
  
"The girl." He whispered.  
  
"He took her."  
  
There was a visible change in her friend's features, and as Dawn and the blond vampire composed themselves and turned their attention in attending her wounded sister, she caught herself glancing over at him once or twice, wondering what it was that struck her as so very different in him.  
  
It was just when Spike was starting to consider to screw Giles and take Buffy to go find the Scoobies himself, when the familiar rattling of the watcher's "perfectly serviceable" Citroen boomed outside on the parking lot, indicating that the bloody cavalry had finally arrived.  
  
  
  
Wanna know what Drusilla is up to with the girl they kidnapped? Sure you do, especially since it's got something to do with Spike. On to the next and final part of this chapter!! 


	5. Watching you, watching me VI

CHAPTER 1: WATCHING YOU, WATCHING ME.  
  
PART 5  
  
"Mirror mirror on the wall. Tell me, who's the fairest maiden of us all."  
  
A hand, fingers delicately slender with long nails, painted black, lingered on the trembling lips of the weeping girl, barely touching them.  
  
The haunting, swaying voice continued, chanting the words as if they were as light as the song of a nightingale.  
  
"The princess, with lips as red as rubies."  
  
The nails dug deep into the girl's lower lip, making her scream. Blood tickled down the curvatures of her mouth, much to the pleasure of her sadistic capturer.  
  
"Hair a cascade of fiery red."  
  
She jolted the girl's head back, baring her neck.  
  
"And a skin as white as snow."  
  
Drusilla giggled childishly, stroking her victim's skin, drawing little circles with her fingers on her neck.  
  
"Isn't she a pretty dolly? Miss Edith would love to have tea with her some time. Wouldn't you, Miss Edith?"  
  
Drusilla held the china doll that she treasured in her arms in front of the frightened girl. She noticed with terror that the doll's eyes were burnt out, leaving two charred holes where they should have been. Whimpering, she opened her mouth to beg for her life.  
  
"Please. Don't hurt me. I've done nothing wrong to you."  
  
"Shhh. You are a bad dolly. Naughty, naughty."  
  
She waved her fingers close to her eyes, a mad grin on her face as she threatened to stab the girl's eyes out.  
  
"No!! Don't do this! Don't do this to me!!"  
  
"Scream as you like naughty little girl, but you put this on yourself. You lied to me."  
  
"N-No! Honest. I hardly know you!"  
  
"You have the sight."  
  
"How.how do you know that?"  
  
"You have the sight and you knew that I needed you. You saw it when you laid your head on the pillows at night and the stars whispered it into your ears. You knew it all along, and still you tried to run from me."  
  
She grabbed the girl's head and bashed it against the stones. The girl's eyes rolled back, and blood ran out of her ears, but she was still conscious. When the insane vampire let go of her, the poor girl slumbered over and shrunk into a shivering heap of misery on the cobblestone floor.  
  
Drusilla kneeled down beside her, deceivingly sympathetic, as she caressed the long red locks to comfort the girl. They had become sticky with blood and glued to her fingers.  
  
"You know what's coming. Don't you? Why you are here?" Drusilla placed her bloodstained hands on her cheeks, leaving red prints on the freckled skin. The girl's eyes were open, and she was weeping constantly. "Shhhh. Don't cry, dolly. It won't hurt. It won't hurt anymore when it's over. It will be wonderful, I promise. All those pretty flames clawing all over your pretty little body. They will turn your dress black as night and melt your tears away."  
  
She got up, her dark, velvet dress adorned with red laces shifting as she moved gracefully over the to the tomb, situated in the middle of the demonic temple. In the dark shadows behind her, half hidden behind the pillars, were her minions, waiting to receive her next order.  
  
Drusilla brushed off the dust and the dead leaves from the lid, revealing ancient inscriptions engraved in stone. They were incomprehensible for mortals, but for a vampire, they were as plain and simple to interpret as the English language. The beautiful vampire raised her chin and turned her dark eyes towards the ceiling, in which a large circular window provided her with a view of the night's sky, clear and brilliant, with a round full moon.  
  
She knew that it was time.  
  
Slowly, she lifted her arms, stretching them longingly towards the stars, as if she was trying to capture them in her hands. Her body swayed, as if dancing to a silent melody.  
  
"Prepare her." She whispered.  
  
Her minions obeyed and dragged the now catatonic girl over to the tomb, tying her wrists and ankles together, though there was hardly any resistance coming from her anymore. In her current frail state of mind, she could do nothing but accept her fate, and watch with hollow eyes how the nightmare visions that had haunted her the last few months turned into reality.  
  
She just prayed that it would be quick.  
  
Finally, the minions opened the tomb and placed her inside. She yelped when she saw that the tomb was not empty and that she had to share her final moments with a decaying skeleton dressed in a knight's outfit. Gently and slowly, she was lowered next to the deceased warrior, as if the minions were cautious not to disturb the human remains. Her head was made to lie on the dusty pillow, and she was terrified to turn her head, for the skull with the black, gaping sockets and unhinged jaw was resting close next to her. Breathing in deeply in her frantic despair, she could smell only death and mould lingering in the air, creating the delusion that she was already dead.  
  
Hovering above her like a malignant, pale moon, was the face of her murderer. Her dark, chestnut hair framing her fine features as she gazed down upon her.  
  
Just like in her visions.  
  
There was sadness in Drusilla's eyes. Sadness and genuine pity.  
  
"You're still scared.' She pouted like a little girl. "And you still don't want to be part of the ritual. Don't you, you naughty girl."  
  
"I-I don't want to die! Please! Don't - Don't set me on fire!!"  
  
The vampire looked distressed.  
  
"Shhhh. Stop this. Or I will have you bite off your own tongue. Bad, bad dolly!"  
  
The girl forced herself to swallow her cries for help, sobbing quickly instead as she feared that the delusional demon was going to keep her word.  
  
"Better. Much, much better. You shouldn't cry, dear heart. You have a higher purpose. The fairest and most important task than any mortal could imagine. You're the one who's going to bring my dearest, darkest knight back into my arms."  
  
A knife cut her wrists, she screamed as her blood spilled generously and she kept screaming when the lid was placed back over her grave, sealing her inside in total darkness.  
  
Drusilla closed her eyes and spoke out the words that she had learned by heart after hearing them chime through her confused mind millions and millions of times.  
  
"Eligor. I call upon thee. Bringer of war, poisoners, pariahs, thieves and murderers."  
  
The inscriptions on the tomb started to cast out a faint light that grew stronger as she continued.  
  
"Eligor, wretched master of decay. I beg thee, take this humble offer, this wretched maiden cursed with visions. Take her blood and use her light to drive your most impious, murderous childe back into darkness."  
  
The light exploded into a blindingly bright, crackling ball of energy that swallowed the whole temple. It swirled and roared, sweeping up the dirt from the floor and hurling Drusilla's hair and dress around her frail frame. The vampire ignored the chaotic violence around, concentrating for the first time in decades on every movement and every word that she carried out or let pass her lips.  
  
This moment was too important for her to allow herself to be distracted by her own lunacy.  
  
Slowly, she raised her hands toward the darkness of the sky above her.  
  
"Cover bone with flesh and veins, create a temple for the demon, and fill his mouth with the hunger for blood. Eligor, bring back your darkest warrior; the Slayer of Slayers, my bravest, vicious, sinful knight!!"  
  
The screaming coming from inside the sealed tomb intensified as flames ignited around the crypt and scorched the grey stones with their hellish heat. Drusilla staggered back, a bit unsteady on her feet as a result of the effort she had made in casting the spell. A minion, the very vampire that Spike had fought in an attempt to free the girl, rushed over to her and caught her before she could fall.  
  
Strings of blood ran out of her nose and ears, but she barely noticed that she was bleeding. Completely fascinated, she kept gazing at the burning tomb; the flames reached up so high that they blackened parts of the ceiling. She also kept listening to the girl's frantic screams, which became maddening desperate at the very end, as if there was not a human but an animal locked up inside, being roasted alive.  
  
It took cruelly long for the agonizing cries to die out.  
  
When finally the fire died out and was no more but an orange shimmering amid the blackened ashes, she put a finger on her lips and hushed her minions to keep silent. Carefully, she stepped over the charred rubble, cautious not to spoil her beautiful dress. As she reached the tomb, she didn't immediately open it, but put her ears on the lid instead.  
  
"Shhh, listen."  
  
She tapped her fingers on the lid, moving them as if they were legs of a spider. She smiled widely.  
  
"I can hear him dream, and his dreams are filled with me, his sweet, precious princess."  
  
Opening the grave, she revealed the blackened corpse of the unfortunate girl, her dress scorched to the flesh, her eyes hollow as they had burst in the intense heat. Her mouth was still opened, capturing her final cries of agony.  
  
Next to her gruesome remains, in the same undisturbed pose in which he was put to rest with his arms crossed over his chest, lay the miraculously well- preserved body of a young man, dressed in the knight's armour that was buried with the deceased. His features were stunningly handsome, with chiselled cheekbones and flawless skin, except for a thin scar running over his right brow.  
  
Drusilla softly cooed as if she was speaking to a newborn as she reached out and traced his face with the back of her hand. Her eyes were fixed upon him, radiating decades of immortal love and lust.  
  
"Wake up, dear heart. Open your eyes."  
  
Spike's eyelids fluttered, and an anxious moan escaped his lips.  
  
"Drusilla."  
  
"I'm here, my little Spike. I'm here. I'll always be waiting for you, dancing under the stars like we used to. All alone. But not anymore."  
  
She stroked his pale lips lovingly, and suddenly his eyes shot open as the vampire awoke. There was a trace of fear showing as he glanced around nervously, completely disorientated. Then his ice blue eyes met her chestnut brown ones and they kept lingering in her gaze.  
  
His voice trembling, his heart refilling with hope, he addressed her.  
  
"Dru? I thought.I thought that.you.were gone."  
  
"No silly. You were gone, and now you're back."  
  
She smiled, her red lips seductively close to her knight's as she bent over into the grave, her long hair dropping down and obscuring half of her face like in the pictures of famous movie stars in the early thirties.  
  
She looked as beautiful and delicate as the very last time he saw her.  
  
And as his eternal beloved placed kisses on his cheeks and nibbled on his neck, all he could smell was her cool familiar scent of roses, sweet lemon cakes, and death, and he knew he needed nothing else to convince him that she was indeed as real as the bleedin medieval armour that he was wearing.  
  
  
  
TBC  
  
  
  
Coming up: Dru and her evil Spike are going out to paint the entire town red, while Buffy finds out that someone has secretly aided her during the past few months in her fight against the evil nasties. However, with the new casualties falling by the hands of the soulless couple, how can our souled Spike proof his innocence to the other Scoobies and the Slayer?  
  
Curious? Next chapter: "Darkness awaits" should be up and running by the end of this month. Until then, review this story. The more I get, the faster I write, mate. 


	6. Darkness awaits I

TITLE: "Mirror Mirror" (1/6?)  
  
AUTHOR: Richard Bachman  
  
EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com  
  
SITE: nope  
  
FEEDBACK: Oh Yes! Absolutely.  
  
DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine.  
  
RATING: R Humor/angst/some action, b'cause that's just what BtVS is nowadays, isn't it?  
  
PAIRING: B/S  
  
SUMMARY: Spike is back in town, ensouled, still chipped, and uncertain about how to deal with his love for the Slayer. Dru is also back in town, alone, still dangerously insane, and with a special wish of her own; to make the dark murderous knight that she had once created to return into her arms.  
  
WARNING: This fic describes scenes of torture, and is dark and angsty, the usual stuff really.  
  
THANKS: To anyone for reading my senseless dribble.  
  
SPECIAL THANKS: To Olga, my dear Betareader  
  
PREVIOUSLY: When Buffy and Dawn find a gang of vampires hunting down a helpless girl in the newly erected Sunnydale High, both come to rescue, but Buffy is seriously injured in battle. Just as things start to look grim, Spike steps in and saves them, but fails to keep the girl out of the hands of the last remaining vampire. In a hidden demonic temple, the unfortunate girl is sacrificed by Drusilla in a dark ritual that brings a blond, merciless vampire into our dimension that has deadly similarities with the Spike we have known before.  
  
CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 1  
  
"Um Buffy, are you still all right. Can you still hear me?"  
  
The Watcher eyed worriedly at his Slayer, who was currently sitting on the couch of the Summers' residence, her head resting on a enormous pile of pillows, while she was sweating like a pig under the blankets that her anxious friends had put over her to make her feel more comfortable.  
  
They had all gathered in the living room. Xander was sitting on the couch next to her, Giles, Willow and Anya were also nearby, and Dawn was sitting in front of her on the carpet, holding her hand and squeezing in it once and a while as if to say not to worry.  
  
Although her eyes were covered under bandages, she could still feel Giles and the others staring at her all through the thick layers of cloth and cotton. They were all very worried.  
  
"I'm not deaf Giles. Yes, I can hear you, but I can't see a thing. Shouldn't you be more worried about that?"  
  
"Just checking. Fortunately, there seems to be no sigh of you suffering of a concussion really." Giles smiled, somewhat relieved. "And your eyes aren't severely damaged. That clear foul smelling liquid that the demon had thrown in your face, Willow found out it was merely an extract of Digitalis purpurea."  
  
"And what might that be in plain and normal English?"  
  
"It's just Foxglove, or Fairy Thimbles." The witch clarified. "You know, those sweet white and pink flowers that can grow up to your shoulders? They're really lovely."  
  
"So, I'm terminated by a demon whose specialty is attacking with smelly waters made out of flowers with wussy names." Buffy furrowed her brows. "You know, that's not exactly good for my fighting morals."  
  
"Well, it was a rather *strong* extract. There was really nothing wussy about that." Willow tried.  
  
Buffy sighed. She had thought that it would be just another easy night in which she would dust a couple of boring ol' vampires and then clear off home to catch some shows on the TV, perhaps have a little after midnight snack with Dawn, hassle her about how things were going with school. Now she was probably lucky if she could even find her way upstairs to her bed on her own.  
  
"Giles? How long is it going to take to get my sight back?"  
  
"It shouldn't take long. A week or two, perhaps a month."  
  
Giles heart flinched as he saw how Buffy reacted with visible dismay to the news.  
  
"It would have been longer if it was any of us. Don't worry Buffy, your Slayer strength stimulates the healing process amazingly efficiently. I suggest you stay home and rest. We'll take care of patrolling for the time being."  
  
"Yeah. It will be fun Buff." Xander opted. "Hey, you know what, I can drop by after work, and you and I can have a go on the old ping pong table in the basement. I sense that can I gain a slight advantage over you now that your good arm is all wrapped up and conveniently broken in several places."  
  
"I can make cookies with you after class." Willow added cheerfully. "We can nibble on raw cookie dough till we get sick and bake the rest into funny little shapes."  
  
Anya nodded enthusiastically. "It's swell to hand them out to your co- workers at the DoubleMeat Palace after a long absence due to illness. You know, to suck up and to apologize for increasing their workload while you were away. Or you can sell them as girl scout cookies to make money, although you would probably need some help from Dawn with that."  
  
Buffy smiled at Anya's comment. Although she could not see their faces, the warm encouragements and the friendly teasing of her friends made her feel a whole lot better. She may have numerous bruises on her skin, her right arm may be broken and she may not look that pretty right now, with that nasty stuff burning off half of her face, but hey, she couldn't see it anyway. She was sure that with the support of her caring friends and family she would be back to be her old demon slaying self in no time. Besides, the cookie baking part did sound rather good, with the calling in sick at work and staying home all day sounding even better.  
  
"Does that mean that Spike can come to visit too?" Dawn asked hopefully.  
  
There was a short moment of silence in the room, before Anya, although still feeling a bit uncomfortable with mentioning the vampire's name in Xander's company, dared to say something.  
  
"Is Spike back in town?"  
  
Dawn nodded eagerly. "He saved Buffy and me. And he stayed with us till Willow, Giles and Xander arrived."  
  
"Shouldn't he be here then? I mean, he obviously still cares about Buffy, otherwise he won't have bothered and would have let the vamps drain you dry. So why isn't he here to see how she's doing?"  
  
"You don't think I will let that evil bloodsucker come anywhere near us again?" Answered Xander bitterly. His eyes met Anya's for a short moment, causing her to avert hers quickly to the floor. Old memories were bringing back old pains, though she believed that she had stopped caring after she was reverted to her old ways.  
  
"Xander." Buffy responded rapidly, her voice anxious, urging her friend to keep their secret between them. The others still didn't know about what had happened just before Spike hasty departure, and she wasn't planning on informing them. Partly because she did feel a bit responsible for what had happened, she should never had let the vampire go that far with her in the first place, bearing in mind that Spike was soulless, and therefore, conscienceless.  
  
A far bigger part of her just didn't want to have the incident mentioned because she was still trying hard to wipe it out of her memory.  
  
Xander sighed as he picked up the hint, but respected Buffy's judgment.  
  
"Besides, there wasn't anymore room in the car."  
  
"You could have at least driven back to give him a lift after dropping us home." Dawn said accusingly. "Spike was also splashed with that same rancid stuff. His whole back was on fire."  
  
"He was hurt?"  
  
"I took a good look at him, Buffy. There were some serious burns. Seemed that the vampire you fought carried a special blend for opponents of his own kind. The poison that was thrown at you was diluted in alcohol. The one that Spike got was prepared with holy water."  
  
"And by the look at that red and scorched back of his, that holy water came probably stragiht from the Sacred Saint Peter itself." Added Xander, not without a trace of glee. "Still, our favourite vamp was able to crawl his way back to his crypt. So there is nothing done to him that wouldn't heal in a fourth night, considering the man's irritatingly fast healing abilities."  
  
Giles gazed at Buffy's change of expression and noticed that there was something bothering her deeply.  
  
"Um, though Xander here had phrased it rather bluntly, he's right. There is no need for you to worry about Spike. He has actually survived the battle in a better shape then you did."  
  
"Who said I was worried about him? I'm not worrying."  
  
"Exactly, as I said, Captain Peroxide isn't the main suffering party here. A girl is abducted by a vampire who could have fit right into the colourful company of a funny-farm, and he's probably up to something. Something which possibly involves a lot of knives and other non-blunt objects."  
  
"Xander is right." Buffy opted quickly, as if anxious to stray off the Spike orientated conversation. "Those vampires weren't on a regular feeding and murdering rampage. They needed her, and were hunting her down for a purpose."  
  
"Did you catch anything unusual in their conversation?"  
  
"Not really. They were all like "Grrr" and "let's rip the Slayer apart". The usual really; they didn't by accident reveal their master plan or draw out a blueprint for me. Although... Dawn told me that he did mention a bunch of stuff to Spike." She mentally kicked herself. There was that evil bloodsucking fiend again. It seemed that he had to be mentioned in every damn sentence.  
  
"Perhaps you guys should go out and check. See what you can pump out of him."  
  
Her face must be blushing, she felt as if her cheeks were on fire as she carelessly phrased the words pump in the vampire's context. Bad, bad images flooded into her mind. Being blinded and unable to focus your vision on something distracting wasn't really helping.  
  
"Um, yes." Giles muttered, eying the crimson creeping up the Slayer's complexion. "We should investigate this. Maybe we can still find out where the vampire took her and rescue the girl before it's too late. Spike's information might be useful."  
  
"As hell it is." Xander mumbled beneath his breath, but still loud enough for Anya and Dawn to pick up.  
  
They discussed and argued a bit longer, each of them mentioning options of what kind of wicked evil had now claimed it's presence over good ol' Sunnydale. Willow and Giles believed that the incident could be linked to another apocalypse; Xander believed that it could be multiple apocalypses, while Anya insisted that the girl was simply abducted instead of instantly killed because the vampires had finally discovered the convenience of keeping life stock. It was nearly dawn when the friends decided to call it a night and left to go home or went to bed.  
  
  
  
So, Buffy is taken care of, but how's Spike doing? 


	7. Darkness awaits II

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 2  
  
He never thought that it would turn out to be this bloody painful.  
  
Sure, he knew of what had happened to his ol' grand Sire. How the incident had changed him from being a deranged minded sadistical psychopath into a squirming bloodsucker of rodents. Simply nauseatingly pitiable really. However, that, he had argued, was Angelus turning into Angel. Suppose the poofter always had a softer, more feminine side hidden underneath his violent mind and his unsatisfiable taste for gory sex, then the gypsies' curse was merely his free card to get out of the closet to show the rest of the world how amazingly pathetic he really was. Angelus' preferences in wearing fine velvet shirts and ponchy shoulder long hairststyles did give away some early hints.  
  
So it might just have had nothing to do with the whole gaining a soul thing after all.  
  
That was what he kept telling himself when he ventured into the demon's cave and demanded the restoration of his soul. There wasn't anything unusual going on in his head as he dropped the question. To his own logic, it was quite plain and simple. He was chipped and got himself into a terrible mess with the Slayer. He was agonizingly in love with her. She didn't want him because he was a disgusting soulless thing, but he just couldn't live without her. So there were really only two options here; rather he found himself a way to kill her off and then try to forget about it by consuming large quantities of alcohol, or he could find himself a soul and try again, see if she wants him the second time around.  
  
He picked option two, since there was probably not enough booze in this entire fucked up world that could keep his mind from straying off into her stake-happy arms.  
  
Killing her, he concluded, would only be a long and agonizing way to commit suicide.  
  
So there he was, after three long days of scarring flesh, splintering bones and snapping limps, his cold lifeless body lying on the cave floor, so exhausted that it could hardly move. Not that he wanted to. Bloody hell, it even hurt when he tried to flutter his eyelids. Moving might not be such a good idea.  
  
A shadow traveled across the floor and loomed over him, followed by a low, perilous voice, telling him that he had finally endured all of his trails.  
  
"Bloody right I have."  
  
Spike's eyes snapped open, his mouth and tongue muttered covetously that he wanted his price. He needed this soul. Buffy needed it, and she deserved it after all that she done for the world.  
  
The demon kept his word. It placed a hand on his chest, and for a moment, his trashed body was burning up as if he had swallowed the sun itself.  
  
The pain was overwhelming. It was hard not to scream, so he did, and then, he passed out.  
  
When he woke up, he didn't remember a thing, which was quite stressful since he was naked from the waist up and found himself in some sort of dark and dank cave, not to mention that there was something big and scary lurking in the shadows. Trembling like a leave, he huddled into a corner and kept staring at two, alien green eyes that lit up brightly in the darkness. He yelled a couple of times, first to ask whatever it was to leave him alone, then begging it for help, because he was cold and scared and for some bleedin reason seemed to have no heartbeat, as though he was dead. The eyes would disappear for a while, then return, but never did it do more then just stare. Studying him with a hint of curiosity and with cruel glee glittering in the dilated pupils.  
  
It took a day and a night before his mind recollected the memories of an unnatural long and violent life.  
  
If he would ever have the chance again to meet up with one of his old acquaintances, someone of his own breed, whose bloodthirst for humans he still could tolerate now he had a soul, someone who wasn't the bloody poofter, he would try to describe what he went through that particular day as a warning to the others. Never kill and maim that many innocent people like he did back in his good ol' glory day. Or at least do the killing and torturing bit, but don't be so soddin daft to go ask for a soul afterwards. It would be like having a perfect set of teeth and then going to a badly licensed dentist to get them yanked out of your soddin jaws without being sedated properly.  
  
Guilt was a funny thing. He knew very well what he had done in the past. The recollections that returned to him were no strangers, but when he was still a soulless creature, most of hem, except the ones covering Dru, Angelus or the Slayer and co, were flat and cold, like facts or numbers printed on a sheet of paper. People killed because he was hungry or bored or pissed off, there must have been thousands of them in the decades since he was turned. Most of them forgotten, thank God for that, but some kept lingering in his mind. Certain bloodstained faces, weeping eyes, mutilated bodies. Some screams and some pleads. Particular men and women, and children.  
  
They had never bothered him much. In fact, recollecting these violent acts used to turn him on in a very perverse way and more often he just enjoyed bragging about them like it was about money or cars and not cold-blooded murders. It was as if he had written the bloody sheet music, knew the notes by heart, but had never heard the actual music played.  
  
But then of course, once his precious soul was restored, it would have absolutely none of that. It filled in the emotional blanks and created new monsters inside of him; guilt and remorse, rising with the gruesome melodies he had composed, booming out of the huge speakers of his conscience in full Dolby surround sound.  
  
It was enough to drive a master vampire mad and get him hiding in gutters like a shameful God-fearing animal, feeding solely on disgusting rat's blood in a pathetic attempt to find redemption.  
  
Eventually, it took him three long months to get his mind more or less together again and to travel down to Sunny D. It took him another two before he was brave enough to face the Slayer, and if it wasn't for her being ambushed and dangerously wounded, he would had stayed away from her. Lurking in the shadows and guarding over his heart's desire in tempting silence as he had done in the past few weeks.  
  
Seeing her again was even more distressing then enduring the endless nightmares of his victims haunting him in his sleep. The anguish showing on her face while she lay there injured on the floor, reminded him of how he had hurt her, and it turned his stomach to think of the way he had felt at that particular moment; lustful and desperate with boiling rage rising inside. Wishing the bitch would let him touch her again and drop her damn pretentious chastity act. She had managed to stop him, but he had already gone too bloody far. He never wanted to hurt anyone he loved, even when he was still a vampire without a soul and therefore assumingly lacking in the conscience department, he did feel something hat could pass for guilt after having forced himself on her. Now that he was the all shiny and improved version of himself, the guilt was almost unbearable.  
  
Inside his new lair, a damp death house near the cemetery that had been out of use for decades, the wounded vampire sat down on the floor, dead leaves crunching beneath him, swept in by drafts many autumns ago, but still in the process of decay. Carefully, he removed his black T shirt and touched the skin on his ruined back. It stung like a thousand knives.  
  
He winched and gritted his teeth.  
  
"Yeah, well. It bloody heals. Stop buggering it."  
  
Muttering angrily to himself like a crazed lunatic, he tossed the shirt on the floor and lay himself down on his stomach, in order to spare his back and giving it an opportunity to heal. Resting his head on a pile of dirt smelling of death and mold, he wanted nothing more but to sleep and forget about the whole bloody night, get the faces of the Slayer, Dawn and that girl he was supposed to save out of his head. However, he was afraid to dream again and kept his eyes open, staring blankly ahead into the black void, till even his vampire vision could no longer distinguish anything except for the growing darkness. If anybody had entered right now and seen him lying there, he would have certainly be mistaken for a corpse and been sent to a morgue. It would not have bothered him.  
  
He felt he had been dying anyway ever since he had gained back his soul.  
  
You see, although he didn't try to torture himself anymore by neglecting his immortal body or by driving his mind to lunacy on purpose by reliving his sins through the magic of his overactive memory over and over again. Although he wasn't such a fucked up asshole like the bloody poofter, who needed a whole soddin century to recover from his Gypsy curse enforced soul invasion. Although from the outside, he seemed to be stronger then the guilt that threatened to drown him, he actually wasn't.  
  
Perhaps the poofter did have a good reason to brood that much as he did after all.  
  
  
  
Back at the Summers residence, Giles has something to say to Buffy. 


	8. Darkness awaits III

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 3  
  
Buffy had almost dozed off when a hesitating knock on her bedroom door interrupted her from having what could have been a nice dream about strawberries buried in mounts of whipped cream. Grunting, she parted from her eminent sleep.  
  
"Come in. I'm not sleeping. Not anymore."  
  
"Um, Buffy. I'm very sorry. I saw your light was still on so I supposed you were awake."  
  
It took Giles a beat before he recognized the irony in his observation.  
  
"Oh, um right. You couldn't tell, of course, that the light was still on since you were -"  
  
"Blind as a bat?"  
  
"Optically challenged."  
  
"That's a very pretty way to put it Giles. Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome." The watcher smiled. "So, do you want me to go now or -"  
  
"Nah, it's OK. I have a whole day tomorrow to catch up on some sleep. No more slumbering off above the hot grill while the burgers are getting scorched; I'm staying in bed till I'm so spoiled by you guys that I'm even too lazy to get out to grab my own toothbrush." Buffy stopped to think. "Not that I'm planning to brush my teeth in bed, of course," she added.  
  
"Yes, that would be a rather peculiar thing to do." Giles sat down next to her, causing the springs of her bed to squeak like a little mouse and her mattress to tilt slightly to one side. He was not at ease and possibly troubled with the things he was about to say to his pupil. Buffy could tell by the way he heard him clear his throat and handle his glasses before he spoke.  
  
"Buffy... Tell me, is there something bothering you?"  
  
"You mean, besides the broken arm and the whole being blind thing?" Buffy asked sarcastically.  
  
"I... I noticed that you were uncomfortable when we spoke about Spike. You're not still, um, involved with him, are you? Because if you are, you shouldn't be, uh, ashamed to tell us. I realize that his behaviour has indeed improved since he started having these certain feelings for you, and he has done a lot of good lately. So I suppose-"  
  
"Giles, read my lips. I'm not seeing him. Not anymore. I haven't been seeing Spike for a heck of a long time."  
  
"Oh, thank God." The Watcher muttered and sighed in relief.  
  
"Hey, what happened to all the understanding and considerate moral support that you were about to offer?"  
  
"Well, I had to bloody well say something to put you at ease, didn't I?"  
  
"Watchers." Buffy complained mockingly. "Aren't they always dubious in their intentions."  
  
Giles cleared his throat, and removed his glasses to give them a good cleaning that they obviously didn't need at all. It was his way of dealing with tension in the group, to rub himself silly on his specs so he didn't have to stare at the youngsters' bewildered faces.  
  
"Buffy, there is something about Spike that I might have to tell you. It's something rather important."  
  
Buffy's heart left the natural position in her chest and sank all the way down to her stomach. What was going on? Did Xander blow the whistle and tell Giles? She panicked. She didn't want to have anything to do with Spike anymore, but that doesn't mean that she would like to see her Watcher freak out and go drag the blond vampire outside to greet the sun.  
  
"Oh. What about him?" She tried to sound as ignorant as possible.  
  
"You know that I can't stay here forever." There was a short painful pause before the Watcher continued. "I came back to Sunnydale because of Willow, and I decided to stay till she was somehow back on her feet again. But sooner or later, I'll have to leave."  
  
"You're heading back to England." She stated bitterly.  
  
"Last time I went away assuming that I was doing you a favor. I hoped that you would learn to stand on your own, that you would stop depending on me and start caring about your own life again."  
  
"Yes, and boy did I ever disappoint you that much."  
  
"Buffy, we've been through this. I thought we concluded that I was the one who had wronged you all by leaving while consciously knowing what an incapable bunch of idiots you all were, remember?"  
  
He managed to get a wavering smile out of her.  
  
"So, then why are you leaving again? We still need you. We do."  
  
"This might sound rather pompous of me, however this time, I actually have something important to take care of back in England. Besides, I have a naïve but stubborn trust that you won't be given me such a hard time next time around when I do decide to return to Sunnydale. You're no longer indifferent to what's happening around you, Buffy." Giles reached out and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You will handle with the knowledge of everything I taught you, guided by your own heart. Therefore I have true confidence in your judgements."  
  
Buffy wasn't sure, but she believed that her eyes were leaking tears. Leaning forward, she searched for the Watcher's presence, and she was caught in his arms immediately as he tried to comfort her.  
  
"When are you planning to go?"  
  
"As soon as you're better. When you're sight is fully restored."  
  
"Now I'm not sure I want to see your face anytime soon."  
  
"Of course you are, you silly girl. How else are you going to roll your eyes at me when you're bloody annoye?."  
  
She remained huddled in the watcher's arms for a while, treasuring this peaceful moment between them. There wasn't anybody else left in this entire world that could make her feel so safe and cared for, and she dreaded the moment that Giles had to leave her again, even though she knew she was indeed ready to face the world like a grown-up this time.  
  
"Which brings me back to the issue of Spike."  
  
She scowled. Here we go again. The irritating blond vampire didn't have to be physically present to make her life as unbearable as possible.  
  
"It seems that our doubtful friend is still caring about you. Obviously, I don't know the reason why he left Sunnydale in the first place, but I think I do know his motivation to return to us."  
  
Buffy was baffled. "You knew he was back?"  
  
"Y-Yes. I'm sorry for not telling you about it any sooner, but Spike insisted-"  
  
"He insisted? And-And you just actually listened to him? When did you start caring about what vampires want?"  
  
"You know, it's rather difficult for me right now to convince myself that you're *not* being troubled with Spike. Your veins are popping up in your neck."  
  
"Why didn't you tell me he was back? Don't you realize how dangerous this is? He could have been doing anything. He could have gone to Dawn or Xander or Willow or-"  
  
"Buffy, Spike is still chipped. He cannot harm any of us."  
  
She bit on her lower lip; it was painful, but at least it could stop her from rambling. Giles eyed her carefully, seriously worried now.  
  
"I - I just was really upset with him. And upset with myself. I shouldn't have slept with him. I mean, what was I thinking, or was I even thinking at all." She turned her head away from Giles, feeling guilty. "Look, I don't mean that he's really dangerous or anything. Don't go out and grab a bunch of stakes to put him out of his misery. I guess I still owe him that much that he should be at least safe around you guys."  
  
Giles waited a moment to give his Slayer an opportunity to compose herself, then continued.  
  
"Perhaps I shouldn't be telling you this, but Spike has watched over you and the rest of the gang the last couple of weeks since his return. I ran into a company of murderous Craulathar demons on a raging stampede one night. He actually managed to save me from being trampled into the cemetery ground." The Watcher paused, hesitating if he should continue. "I was rather sceptical towards him, possibly even aggressive, since I bear the knowledge of you two, um, once being together. However, as he spoke to me, I realized that whatever lack of conscience he might have, being a soulless creature, he truly cares about you, and he will never allow anything to happen to you."  
  
"It's his chip." Buffy whispered. "What he feels for me isn't real. It *cannot* be real. You cannot love somebody without a soul."  
  
"Perhaps not. I'm not fully aware of what kind of human emotions demons are fully capable of feeling. But I do tell you this - in all my years as a watcher, I've never encountered a single vampire that has tried so hard to change himself for the better, driven solely by his own free will. Spike is special, Buffy. His motives may have been less than honourable in the beginning, but in the end, they became good."  
  
"Why are you telling me this?" Buffy asked softly.  
  
Giles sighed. It turned out to be even more difficult for him now to explain his strange reasoning to her then before he started this entire conversation; still, he wanted to give it a try.  
  
"I want you to have someone else you can count on. Buffy, if things are threatening to go seriously wrong, like last time, don't hesitate to ask Spike for help."  
  
She remained silent for a moment, her mind a cloud of confusing emotions. Part of her wanted Giles to know what he had done to her. Another part was feeling so much guilt that it could easily overwhelm her if she would ever be so careless to let it slip out of her control. However, more than anything else, she wanted the answer on the question that had troubled her ever since that frightening night in the abandoned house, when she had allowed herself to surrender to her darkest desires.  
  
"But, how can I trust him?"  
  
"Trust in your own judgments Buffy, and that should be enough."  
  
  
  
And now for something completely different; Spike and Dru are up to something naughty. 


	9. Darkness awaits VI

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 4  
  
Sunnydale cemetery October 22nd, 2002.  
  
"Come on luv! We're supposed to have a bit of a bash tonight. Not going to some soddin fancy dress party here."  
  
Standing at the foot of the decaying staircase, the somewhat irritated and really bored vampire ran his hands through his bleached hair that was so very white that it almost reflected in the dim light of the wax candles. He was back in his black jeans and T-shirt combo, although Dru was thrilled with the ridiculous knight outfit, in which he had woken up into her alien world. Of course, he would have done everything to please his dark princess; he would have slain armies for her, brought her back the blood of newborn babies if she asked for it (and believe me, she did), he would even have let her tie him up and let her fumble with his private parts while she was holding a wineglass filled to the rim with holy water. However, with that soddin' Halloween costume, he definitely drew the line. Fortunately, he found clothes that suited his taste on his dinner a couple of nights ago. That one was indeed a happy meal; a nice treat and something to have a bite in, what more could a bloke ask for.  
  
Still, he was missing a long, black leather trenchcoat to complete his wardrobe and was thinking of pursuing one tonight, at the big coming out party that he planned to throw in town... If Drusilla was ever going to finish with dressing up, that was.  
  
"Dru!" Bloody hell woman, I'm bored out of my bloody mind. Let's get going already! His voice trembled with impatience. "If you don't finish within a minute, I'm coming up to get you, whether you're dressed or not!"  
  
"Don't hassle her darkness. She could be musing right now, talking to the stars to see into the future."  
  
Spike snapped his head around and noticed the vampire that his lover had made to serve her, a dark haired boy with eyes almost as blue as his own. They were distant, even when addressing him or his Sire. It took only a couple of seconds right after he was introduced to him before the bleached vampire realized that the fledgling was as mad as his creator, and that was before the deranged wanker opened his mouth and started to speak. Dru had claimed that she was lonely and that the boy had reminded her of him, although he wasn't half as cooperative when being turned, which explained his current state of mind and the many scars on his flesh.  
  
Spike tried to remain friendly to the lad.  
  
"Piss off, you little dimwit. If I need a minion with only half a brain, I will give a whistle."  
  
The younger vampire growled.  
  
"I don't like you."  
  
"Yeah, well, write it down on a sheet of paper and go complain to your boss. Dru!!"  
  
He turned his attention back to the small wooden door at the top of the stairs.  
  
"Dru!! Get the bleedin hell ready right now or you can forget about our nice little plan. I'll be off. Alone."  
  
"Spike." A small voice came out of the bedroom as the door slowly opened and a white hand appeared, fingers so slender that they could slip easily through a keyhole. "Don't be cross with me. I can't find my nice Sunday dress, the one with all the laces and the white bows over the shoulders. The one I wear to go to church. I can't find it anywhere."  
  
The sadness and the disappointment in her words took the edge off his anger, and Spike managed to find enough patience left in the pit of his stomach to try to comfort his love.  
  
"Don't worry pet. I'm sure you'll look fine in anything you wear. Now come downstairs, will you?"  
  
"My hair, it's all dull and dead. It's withering away."  
  
"No, it's not. It's just the light in here, too many soft candles and too little harsh fluorescent lightbulbs. So let's get the hell out of this yawning hole and go someplace nice where your hair does look good, shall we?"  
  
There was no response coming from his beloved, and the pale fingers disappeared inside again, closing the door.  
  
Spike had enough of this. He had been itching to get out to cause some mayhem for the last two tedious long hours. There was simply not anymore patience left in him to wait for Dru to get her mind straight for a change and stroll down those steps by her own.  
  
"Right then." He snapped angrily, "I'm gonna drag you out of that soddin room, even if you're still naked like on the day you were born."  
  
He rushed up the steps, jumping over two at a time, and stormed into their bedroom. The door flew open and banged against the stone wall with such brute force that it splintered the wood.  
  
Drusilla stood in front of their double bed, completely naked amid piles of colorful clothes spread out on the floor. Her long, slim arms were wrapped around her doll. Her skin was so pale, that even the white fabric of Miss Edith's dress seemed to contrast with her complextion. The vampire girl stared at him, her dark eyes innocently large, her lips slightly parted as if she was surprised by his rude interruption.  
  
"Spike." She spoke, sounding so small that it would melt even the most hardened of hearts. "Can I bring Miss Edith with me? She has been good the last few days and she is already properly dressed."  
  
The blond vampire remained silent for a while and kept standing by the door, his eyes straying over her mysteriously beautiful body, observing every soft curve and the perfect rounds that were her breasts. Something got stuck in his throat as he remembered how every bewitching part of her tasted like, and he wished he could have her taste on his tongue right now.  
  
Gently, he took her hand and pulled her near. She was light as a feather and giggled childishly as he put his hand over her breasts. He squeezed her nipples, turning the pink flesh between his fingers till his pet threw her head back and screamed.  
  
He kissed the soft flesh of her exposed neck. The scent of her filled his head. Her hands crawled under his shirt and nails dug deep into his flesh, making him bleed as their lips collided hungrily in their fiery passion.  
  
"God, I love you so much it bloody hurts." Spike mumbled.  
  
"Pain is good. It reminds me that I'm alive. Sometimes I tend to forget that we're still living and not already dead."  
  
"Oh, we are alive luv. We are alive." He kissed her and pushed her against the banister, his hands going everywhere. "As long as we two stay together, we will live like kings."  
  
"And queens." Purred Drusilla. "Like in Fairytales. Happily ever after."  
  
"Yeah, with the whole soddin Kingdom rejoicing while we shag ourselves senseless in a large pool of their blood."  
  
They kissed once more, then he pushed her soft luring body gently away, holding her by her thin waist while he made certain that she didn't remove too much of his skin with her nails scratching over his back. Dru was sometimes like a big cat that didn't know how to retract her claws.  
  
"Shall I help you pick out some clothes, pet? It's getting late already and my stomach is all grumbles. And you really shouldn't go out like this! You'll catch a cold."  
  
Drusilla pouted. Although she had already forgotten what she was supposed to be doing, she didn't like to be treated like a little girl. It was the natural reaction of any six-year-old child, or the likely reply of a 142 year old mentally challenged vampire like herself.  
  
"I promise I'll pick out something nice. Something with flowers and laces. Something to match the colors of your eyes."  
  
His love's pouting lips widened in a smile.  
  
"Make me pretty." She coed cheerfully.  
  
"Sure pet. As pretty as you wish to be."  
  
There was no way in his right mind that he could ever find anyone more interesting or more beautiful then this delicate nightshade blossoming in eternal darkness. Drusilla was everything for him. Losing her would mean spending eternity on earth in his private hell till he was saved from the agony of it all by an early dusty ending.  
  
And he was not planning on going through that ever again. 


	10. Darkness awaits V

Mirror mirror (2/6)  
  
PART 5  
  
"But don't you think it's still kinda strange? We've been out there for four hours straight, and the only one we've encountered who could be considered even slightly scary was mister Moulton, the cemetery's caretaker. Where did all the vampires and demons go? Are they on strike or something?"  
  
They were heading home, driving through a deserted Mainstreet just after midnight when Dawn's discontent about the lack of action on their latest patrolling stroll manifested itself in a series of whiny complaints. It made Xander wonder if today's teenagers were indeed that different of the teenagers they were half a decade ago, in the way that they had what it seemed an unsatisfiable appetite for unnecessary life-threathening danger. It might, of cours,e just be something that was specific to the Summers women. Personally, he was everything but ungrateful for tonight's lack of fangs, talons and vampire dust. Call him a boring old grownup, but a night without scary monsters trying to dig their teeth into his neck was a good night on the Xander meter of fun.  
  
"Dawnie! How many times did I tell you, don't jinx it! If our past wacky adventures have taught us anything at all, it must be that you shouldn't tempt the higher powers by asking for troubles that we surely cannot handle. If there are no bloodsuckers wrecking havoc or demons trying to end the world tonight, then let it be. The less we have to fight, the smaller our chances of actually getting ourselves killed are."  
  
"But it's so unfair! Buffy is getting better and better, and I bet she'll be in shape pretty soon to go out slaying again. And then there will be no more patrolling for me, at least not by myself. I'll be lucky if she even lets me get near a vampire when I have to go out slaying with her."  
  
"First of all, young lady, you didn't patrol on your own while Buffy was recovering. Giles or Willow or me were there every time, remember? And secondly, if you want to keep your sister in bed for another week, just unleash some of that frustrated teenage anger of yours on her, and I guarantee that you'll be giving her a major headache that can keep her out of service for days."  
  
"I was just trying to say that I expected at least some fledglings crawling out of the graves. I could have been happy with staking a couple of those."  
  
Xander sighed deeply.  
  
"Just let it go sweetie. Just let it go"  
  
"Yeah, but -"  
  
The teenager's nagging was suddenly interrupted as a woman in a flaming red dress appeared completely out of the blue from the left side of the road, taking Xander by surprise.  
  
"Holy shit!"  
  
He clenched his hands firmly on the wheel, and made a sharp turn to the opposite direction. The tires of his car screamed in disapproval as the world outside transformed into a crazed out whirlwind of comet tailed lights and blurry images. The anxious face of the woman swept by, lit up a ghostly pale as she was caught in the headlights. Then there were sidewalks and the shops with their bright neon signs that disappeared again out of his vision at deadly frightening speed. Dawn had just started to scream in frantic fear as the beam of the headlights revealed a patch of dark green foliage, appearing straight ahead of them. Xander had just about enough time to wonder what that big and sturdy looking oak tree was doing in the middle of the freaking road before his 96'Buick smashed into the tree trunk. Dawn and him were lifted out of their seats and thrown forward till their safety belts yanked them back with a painful jolt.  
  
Before Xander could speak again, he had to make sure that the spinning of his vehicle and the spinning in his head had stopped and that he was indeed still alive.  
  
"Oh God. Are you OK Dawn?" His chest was hurting, and he could hear his heartbeat drumming in his ears. He released the wheel that he had so desperately tried to control, leaving dark damp patches behind on the black plastic.  
  
Dawn stared bewildered at him.  
  
"Y-Yes. I guess so. B-but that woman. Did we hit her?"  
  
"I don't know. I tried to get out of her way but she appeared so damn fast." Xander gazed through the side mirror of his car, although he really rather would rather not. There was a huddled form sitting on the asphalt, but she was too far away for him to see if she was injured.  
  
"You stay here. I'll go and see if she's hurt."  
  
He jumped out of the car, and ran over to her, praying to God almighty in his head that she was still okay. Sunnydale's mortality rate had always been well above the nation's average, but oh boy did he not need to be part of the killing guard that thinned out the small town's population.  
  
"Are you all right miss?" He blurted out as soon as he came near enough for her to hear. "Are you hur- Oh Shit."  
  
The woman sitting in front of him was very obviously not all right. Her dress wasn't supposed to be this violently red. It was only made to appear so by the blood that was soaked into the fabric. It seemed to be everywhere. On her arms and legs and all over her face. She gazed up at him, eyes wide in utter shock and rimmed by black runny mascara. She looked like a nightmare version of one of those creepy weeping piccolo dolls that his mother collected.  
  
Her hand shot out and grabbed him by his coat, giving him another unpleasant surprise.  
  
"Help me! Please!! Help me."  
  
"What's going on? D-Did my car hit you?" He asked with panic vibrating in his voice. No, it wasn't the car. Her clothes were already stained like this when she crossed the road like a frightened little rabbit. Something is wrong here. Seriously wrong.  
  
She shook her head. Her blond locks swirling around frantically.  
  
"It's not my blood. Not all of it."  
  
'Okay, listen. You're confusing and creeping me out here. Whose blood is it?"  
  
"It's blood from other people. Some of it came from my friend's. I was hanging out at the bar when the music suddenly stopped and there was this screaming. There was this man standing in the middle of the dance floor. He was holding another guy by his throat and he was choking him. He - he choked so hard that - that there was blood coming out of that other man's ears. And a girl was screaming and laughing. I think she was his girlfriend."  
  
She was hyperventilating while Xander squatted down beside her.  
  
"Where were you?"  
  
"A-at the Bronze. I was at the Bronze. They killed everybody in there. The guests, the waitresses, the bartenders. They tortured them before they ripped out their throats. He didn't allow them to kill the band members though. He kept them alive and made them play the same damn song over and over and over again."  
  
Guess that kinda answers Dawn's question of where all the evil bloodsucking fiends went for tonight. Vampires on a rampage at the Bronze. This was really serious. Most of them don't have to guts to pull this off in a town where the Slayer ruled with her wooden pointy sticks. This has to be one dumb demon or a wicked and powerful nasty, perhaps, something in the order of the new big bad. For the sake of what was left of the Bronze's regulars, he hoped that it was the first.  
  
The girl was shivering in shock and Xander felt pity for her. He took off his coat and draped it over her slender shoulders. She didn't reacted to his kind gesture and just kept staring at the red taillights of his wrecked car.  
  
"She must have told him that she really liked their music."  
  
Xander wrapped his arms around the woman and urged her gently to get up.  
  
"It's okay. They can't hurt you now. You're safe with us."  
  
He led her back to his car, where Dawn was already standing next to an opened backseat door. She had been watching them from a distance, but they had been too far away for her to be able to follow their conversation. The teenager's eyes grew wide as they came close enough for her to realize that the redness in the dress wasn't merely the color of the fabric.  
  
"Xander, what happened?"  
  
"I'm not sure, but I think she's attacked by vampires. We have to get her to the hospital. And we have to get to the Bronze."  
  
"What?" Dawn helped her into the backseat while she looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "The Bronze, why?"  
  
"Because there are vampires there." He quickly took place behind the wheel and tried the engine. To his own amazement, the car didn't struggle and came right back into life.  
  
  
  
TBC 


	11. Darkness awaits 6

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 6  
  
Saturday nights had always been a busy time for the Bronze. Young people out of Sunnydale and the surrounding (even smaller) towns and suburbs came to this place to simply hang out or to take a chance at the opposite sex. The place was crowded with girls in short skirts and bright cheery colored halter tops. They looked like flowers sending a silent message out to the guys that they were ready to be plucked. There were plenty of summer-tanned and gym class-muscled young men around who were more then willing to give in to these luring invitations, and at the side of the dimly lit dance- floor, it was open hunting season for the lonely hearted. Couples who got lucky moved quickly to the middle of the crowded space, where they had all the privacy to rub and fumble each other, while the live band on stage provided the appropriate soundtrack.  
  
Life could be sweet in Sunnydale.  
  
Tonight however, this teenage hormones saturated atmosphere had been cruelly disrupted by a couple of inhuman guests, who were out hunting for something far less complicated and, in a place filled with young, vibrant bodies with gallons of blood pumping through their circulation systems, much easier to get.  
  
Spike lit up another cigarette. It was his third since the vampire had leisurely strolled into the popular hideout after having got rid of the bouncers at the door in a most hideous and satisfying way. Scarlet aortic blood had slashed up to the ceiling as he had literally ripped off their heads from their overdeveloped bodies, tearing the flesh and rupturing the arteries like a savage beast as he had feasted on them in full game face. What can he say? He always was a sucker for dramatic entrances. Get the whole oppressive atmosphere of deadly fear going to choke the wit out of the living. Paralyze them so they can hardly think of anything sensible to put up as a defense. Letting the demon take over his physical appearance while killing the first couple of free roam meals always does the trick and tonight it was no exception. A girl with straight black hair and almond eyes, probably Asian, took one gaze at Spike's horrible table manners and completely freaked out.  
  
It was amazing how much sound could come from such a small throat like hers.  
  
Her mad screaming alarmed those who were already inside the club. The magical phrase "Help, some guy killed someone here!" was as effective in driving the humans away from the scene as firing a bloody gunshot and before he could so much as wipe the blood from his chin, the whole crowd was in blind panic and they were running all around the place like daft headless chickens, desperate to get the hell out.  
  
Clever thing that he had actually thought of that in advance and had his minions positioned near every possible exit in the facility before he kicked off the show.  
  
From that moment on, Spike had done every bit of iniquity to rearrange this enclosed little world into one more to his own likings, with the screaming of tortured souls replacing the daft girly music and with the blood of the patrons flowing like cheap tap beer, complete with a sickly pink crown of foam. He had left the members of one of the performing bands tastefully named " Back Lab" alive, and kept them on stage to play for the entertainment of the vampire crowd. There was one song in their repertoire that he particularly liked and he made them perform it repetitiously till the lyrics became meaningless and the melody was lost, as it was hardly picked up anymore by his brains. Still, he wanted them to keep on going. Everything had to be perfect once the guest of honor arrived.  
  
Leaning leisurely with his back against an industrial looking column, his right hand in his pocket while he held his smoking cigarette in the other, he eyed lazily at his heart's desire, the corners of his lips curled into a content and amused grin.  
  
"We really should leave a couple of those alive luv. Moby won't bite without any wriggling bait."  
  
The vampire girl swirled her head around to look at her companion, her eyes large with madness. She was dressed in a flaming red dress with thin, almost invisible shoulder straps. Black lace in rose patterns covered the crimson velvet. Her long, brown locks fell gracefully over her bare shoulders.  
  
In Spike's eyes, she was a piece of fallen heaven. A wingless angel, seductive and wicked, like Lucifer itself in a better package.  
  
Drusilla laughed heartily. Her hands were drenched in blood, and bits and pieces of skin of her victim clung under the rims of her long black nails. She put two fingers in her mouth and sucked on them, what would have grossed out any other normal person, but for Spike, it kinda added extra appeal to this woman that he had already put on a pedestal.  
  
"Don't want to stop this game dear heart." Drusilla explained. She was waltzing around a chained young man hanging suspended from a rotating ceiling fan. His tall, almost naked frame swirled around like a toaster on display at a prize game show. Drusilla's hand with a wrist as frail looking as the nozzle of a fine china thee pot, reached out and grabbed his neck The slender muscles underneath the translucent skin tightened, causing her victim to stop spinning in the air and the engine of the fan to hum loudly in disapproval. With her other hand, her fingers stretched and wide apart, careful not to touch the tattered chest of the human, she massaged his skin with a flat palm, smearing his blood all over his body.  
  
The tortured man yelped in fear.  
  
Drusilla's lips pouted childishly, her lazy, long eyelashes fluttered.  
  
"Ah, you don't like playing with me? Is that the reason why you act like the cat caught your tongue?" She swirled around, her face struck by sudden grief and disappointment. "Spike, this one is naughty and rude. He doesn't speak when spoken to. I don't think I like him anymore."  
  
"Yeah, I don't fancy this sweaty wanker myself." Spike flung his glowing bud on the floor and walked over to her. "He smells like a bucket of deep fried monkey penises. Makes me wanne heave up my blood. But I think you can't really blame him for not talking back, luv. It's kinda hard to say something decent without a tongue in the oral cavity."  
  
Drusilla looked shocked and confused for a moment, as though horrified with the notion that someone had done this to the poor man, then her face lightened up when she remembered how good it had felt to have the smooth, serpent-like organ wriggling in her hands as she had ripped it out of him herself. It brought a demonic smile to her lips.  
  
"Can I kill him? Can I? He's no fun to be with. I rather play with you, my beautiful dangerous Spike."  
  
She turned around completely and grasped his head between her tainted hands, smearing blood over his pale cheeks while her thumb traced his lips and forced its way into his mouth.  
  
He licked her fingers clean, his fiery eyes never leaving hers.  
  
"Dru." he said hoarsely while he felt her hand slip lower and lower over his shirt and vanishing inside his pants. He gasped and let go of a small sigh as her slender cold fingers wrapped around his cock. He tried to focus but it was almost impossible with her presence filling all of his senses, the thrill of her voice vibrating the air close to his ears, making them itch pleasantly. Sucking in some unneeded air to compose himself, he managed to push her away, catching her wrist so her hand won't continue to drive him mad with its lustful pulls.  
  
"Dru!" Trying to sound as stern and angry as he could manage while he hardly restrained himself from jumping all over her. "Stop this! I can't bloody work like this! Can't think with all the blood rushing into the wrong body part."  
  
She giggled, throwing her hair back over her shoulders.  
  
"Little William is so very shy, but always grows bold under my touch."  
  
It was a good thing that there wasn't enough light inside of the Bronze to show his cheeks flushing crimson. Somehow, letting his minions know what kind of sweet little pet name his luv has come up with to call his dinky wasn't all that manly, or that threatening with that desired sense of doom, except for his reputation as the Big Bad perhaps.  
  
"Dru, please do try to keep your mind together for a sec. Or what is left of it anyway. We have a plan, remember?"  
  
A glittering appeared in her mad eyes. "The Slayer." She whispered gleefully. "We are going to kill her aren't we?" her voice sounded eager and young, like that of an impatient child.  
  
Spike grinned.  
  
"Yeah, we certainly are luv, eventually. But we're gonna make her suffer first. Make her hurt a thousand times worse than the pain she had caused you, my sweet dark princess."  
  
"I want to see her bleed Spike, I want her screaming and yearning and heartbroken. I want her totally miserable and alone. She deserves it, that naughty devilish girl with her whore's lips and come-get-me eyes. Can you do that for me?"  
  
"Consider it done poodle."  
  
"And-And you promise you won't leave me when you see her? Won't shift the game in mid-play and dust my heart instead of the Slayer's?" Her voice started to shake with emotions, her mind fleeing into comforting madness as painful memories flooded into her pretty head. "Please Spike, tell me you won't hurt me again. Tell me.that you still love me."  
  
"Always, luv. I don't bloody well know what to do without you." He sucked in his cheeks, a rage simmered inside his stomach as he realized what had caused his love to question his dedication to her, and I filled him with a sickening sense of jealousy that the memories of him still haunted his love.  
  
"I'm not like him, Dru." He spat the words out in disgust. "I won't forget who I truly am and I will never forget you. You are the world to me, my darkest, most perverse desire, my soddin stars in the soddin sky."  
  
There were tears rolling down her cheeks. It surprised him that she was crying, and it also put the bitter taste of anger into his mouth that she was in grief. What had he been thinking, that mindless, treacherous, ungrateful fool! To do this to her, his love, his Sire.  
  
His only reason why he existed at all.  
  
Carefully and gentle, he brushed away her tears, a forceful smile on his lips to comfort her.  
  
"Don't cry luv. Daddy is home and he's gonna put things right again. Promised." She sobbed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, weeping dark stains on his black t-shirt. Gently, he stroked her long soft hair. " I will let him pay for what he had done to you." His blue eyes suddenly darkened with a vindictive persuasion. "The Slayer and batty chip-boy won't have their soddin happy ever after, not over my dead body. You and I are gonna watch how the two of them are gonna kill each other, and we're gonna dance on top of their bloody corpses." 


	12. Darkness awaits 7

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 7  
  
The cemetery wasn't such a dark and frightening place at night as most people expected it to be. To Spike, this site with its serene darkness was his place of bliss.  
  
He was brought into existence in a cemetery. He had clawed his way out of his own grave through thick layers of soil in a graveyard just outside of London decades ago, awaited by his delighted Drusilla. Cemeteries had been the place where he collected his minions in the years of roaming through Europe and later, North and South America, leaving a trail of death and suffering behind as he and Dru thrived on the misery of others. He had found sanctuary in these gardens of the dead countless of times, for example in Poland, after Dru was injured by an angry mob, all pitchforks and torches. They did got away alive though, which couldn't quite be said for a large part of the stake-party's precipitants. Finally, he moved into the Sunnydale cemetery himself after the soldier boys turned him fangless and he needed to escape the pitying looks of the bloody Scoobies. He had killed humans and battled demons in this place. He knew every twist and bump in its small cobble stone path and the exact location of every amusing headstone with names like Piere Ian Zahut and Barney Utless. He had stalked and annoyed the hell out of the Slayer under this moonlit, death burdened sky.  
  
And it was here where he had fallen painfully deep in love with her.  
  
He had tried to kill her right here under these crooked trees and besides the moss covered crypts a zillion times before. He cursed her name and that of her friends, his voice lacking in strength and conviction, as his tongue was sluggish of booze and his heart was cowardly wavering.  
  
Every night, Spike sat there on a tumbled headstone under the swaying, almost barren branches, after watching the her or the Scoobs leave after patrolling, and tried to slay her with brain damaging amounts of booze. It never seemed to work though.  
  
He just didn't know how to let her go.  
  
The flask was almost empty, he could hear the little fluid that was still left rattle inside as he shook it. Throwing his head back, he poured the last reluctant drops over his thirsting tongue, then tossed the empty flask away and smacked his lips. Expecting to taste the Bourbon, he was unpleasantly surprised to taste her lips instead.  
  
"Why oh why do I even bother buying this buggered crap? I could have spent it on a bag of O-neg instead. Wash the taste of soddin rat's blood out of my mouth."  
  
Convinced that the alcohol had only a limited affect (Willy must have watered it down again, that bloody bastard.) he jumped on his feet, only to sway like a professional drunk and collapse on the soggy grass after taking a few faltering steps. There on the ground, he rolled on his back and gazed up at the star lit night stretching out above him. He didn't want to move, only to lie there and wait for the sky to glow in the east. His seduced senses started to deceive him, and suddenly, he could feel her, sense her near. Her soft, small hands tracing his damp forehead and his glowing cheeks. He closed his eyes for a moment and chuckled, aware of the silliness of his experience, for he knew she would never come near him again, let alone straddle him like the bloody Buffybot would.  
  
She won't forgive you for what you have done to her, Spike. Not bloody likely.  
  
But he could smell her, sweet and warm, like the promise of a pleasant summer's day. He could feel her touch his shoulders, her fluttering fingers over his chest, gently moving towards the sensitive flesh between his legs. He could feel her warmth, as she wrapped herself around his arousal, the rhythmical tightening of her muscles, her moistness as he was inside her. And then he tasted her lips again, passionate and eager, kind and loving. It was in those lips that he had first tasted what her love, her true love would really feel like.  
  
It had left him hungering for it ever since.  
  
"Buffy." His voice was battered and mournful, as he swallowed bitter tears. This was too bloody much. She wasn't there. She didn't want anything to do with him. She deserved better then to be with this ex- mass murderer annex psychopath anyway. But the yearning to have her near, the craving to have her love in return, it put a thousand knives in his cold un-beating heart and twisted them all at once.  
  
Her presence was overwhelming now. The scent of her so strong that it dazzled his senses, the heat radiating from her flesh in waves warmed his own. "Spike" She whispered, her perfect lips parted slightly to let his name pass sensually, deceivingly loving. "Tell me you love me. Tell me you need me."  
  
There was no need for him to reason that this was merely a hallucination, and that it would be foolish to answer to a figment of his own faltering mind. The answer to her question was at the tip of tongue and was always carried with him in his heart.  
  
"I love you Slayer. I need you." He whispered over creaked pale lips. "I exist only because of you."  
  
She smiled, her hands slipping over his bare chest, reaching up to his raised arms above his head. They traced his buzzing skin, and wrapped around his wrists that were captured in the cold steel of handcuffs. Soft candlelight cast a glow over her pretty face, her eyes twinkling with lust and desire, and they showed how desperate she was, how much she needed someone to love her. How much she really needed someone to drive away the loneliness that threatened to pull her down into darkness.  
  
"They don't understand. Don't know how it feels. To be brought back into the world that you have left behind for a better, more peaceful place, only to realize that after waking up in your own grave that you're stuck in the bitterness of reality. Of dripping waterpipes and crappy jobs. Of living."  
  
She had looked at him then. There wasn't any love or recognition for his feelings in her eyes, only deep, seething loathing for what she was doing. Still, she kept caressing him, entwining her strong fingers in his.  
  
"You make me feel as if I don't need to go on with life. It's enough for me to merely exist. I don't have to face the dark or the light anymore. With you, things are easier." He had believed that he was content with her explanation why she visited him at night, knocking hesitatingly on his crypt's door after her nightly strolls, came marching in as soon as he answered and throwing him on his canister bed. Planting her wet kisses on his mouth and shagging him senseless. He should have been happy. He had her as close as he could ever get. Her beautiful, powerful body wrapped all around him, her breathy voice whispering into his ears, asking him to tell her how deeply he loved her. It was his soddin wet dream come true. But it didn't take long for the blond vampire to realize that his feelings for her meant more then only that.  
  
It wasn't enough to have her physically. He wanted her to love him too.  
  
"You know I can never love you." The ghostly representation of the Slayer frowned and looked down at him as she reasoned. "You're everything I despise and fight against. You're evil personified." Her expression became anxious, a simmering hate that she felt towards herself translated into words that turned out to rip his heart to pieces. "You can't be in love with me. You're merely using me for your perverted sense of lust. You cannot love without a soul."  
  
"But-But Buffy, I do have a soul now." He stammered, voice quivering of stirring emotions. "Honest. I fought an ugly tosser of a demon and his army of nasties to get it restored. I'm able to love someone, really. I had always been able to love with my whole soddin heart. I didn't need a soul to love you."  
  
He opened his eyes, knowing that the liquor-fuelled vision of her would probably disappear, but faintly he hoped that the real Slayer would be there to hear these words he had longed to say to her ever since he came back from his African journey. He had lacked the courage to do so, dreading that she would turn him down again. Her refusal would be final. No wizard demon or magical spell could make her love him the way he wanted it, which was pure and true without pretence.  
  
Only the bounderless, starry sky greeted him as he opened his eyes. The chirping of late autumn crickets vibrated the air that was saturated with the thick scent of wet, decaying leaves. The dampness of the cemetery floor felt cold through his worn shirt.  
  
No Slayer of course.  
  
Only a dull drumming on both sides of his temples and a mind numbing headache that made the soddin crickets sound like a symphony of roaring chainsaws.  
  
Great, good going Spike.  
  
He blinked a couple of times, and wiped away the damp patches from his cheeks with the back of his hand. He can't believe he had been crying like a bloody poofter. How nauseating pathetic. Silly little William was really on the loose tonight. Perhaps it was time to get his souled carcass back to the lair and lock the whimpering wanker up in a secluded part in the back of his mind before he made a complete fool out of himself here out in the open, for any demon baring a grudge against his slaying practices to see.  
  
He struggled back on his feet, brushing the dead leaves and mud stains off his clothes. His sense of orientation and balance had been somewhat restored, and together with the notion that he was suffering from a major hang-over the size of a small horse, he was able to tell that he had been out for a while. Time to head home before he got sobered up enough to have William talk him into a depression and force him to greet the bloody sunrise.  
  
If he wasn't mistaken, there were still a couple of bottles of very decent Scotch left in his new dig from the time he was still evil enough to nick stuff from the watcher. This should be sufficient to hold back the anxious dreams about wriggling piles of dead people threatening to claim his sanity and keep William sedated till the morning. After that, well.he would just have to knock himself unconscious after that.  
  
He was halfway through the graveyard, when he sensed that someone was following him.  
  
It wasn't that his stalker was making a lot of noise. He believed that he must be well trained in snooping around, for his footsteps were barely audible, so carefully placed as they were, that nothing but little sighs of shifting leaves were caught by the blond vampire's sharp sense of hearing. But for a master vampire who had lived a good 100 odd years, this was enough to know that he was followed.  
  
Spike didn't react to this notion, rather kept his pace and speed as steady as before. He didn't want to run from his stalker for he didn't know who and how dangerous his opponent was. Running away with the tail between the legs like a yellow dog would just give his antagonist the wrong impression that he was ready to be thoroughly and heavily fucked. Sucking in his cheeks, he sharpened his senses and listened carefully, and noticed that his shadow didn't have a heartbeat, nor could he hear the soft wheezing of a good set of working lungs.  
  
So the nosy wanker was a vampire, he figured. Or a very odd type of demon with gills and a well-oiled circulation system. Ether way, he wasn't human, in which case he couldn't hurt because of his chip and possibly because of his precious soul (HA! How is that for a bloody double handicap, seems a bit over the top, ain't it?) but a nasty from the Never Never, which he could give a good ass kicking to if he decided that the wanker deserved one.  
  
His hands were itching for a good brawl.  
  
Spike suddenly turned the corner around the Seller's family crypt and vanished behind its pillars.  
  
He heard that his stalker held still for a moment, then sped up his pace to catch up with him, closing in the distance. His dark, tall shadow just loomed around the corner, as Spike's hand snatched the man by his throat and pushed him violently with his back against the wall. His prisoner struggled angrily, but although Spike was still a bit dazed by his alcoholic haze, the blond vampire was able to keep him restrained and cooled his flaring temper down by introducing his head to a heavy brick wall. The stranger moaned, and his muscles turned limp as Spike forced him to turn around.  
  
It was that nutcase bloodsucker again who had kidnapped the red haired girl from Sunnydale High. The one who was partly responsible for hospitalizing the Slayer. The evil nasty that had made her temporary blind and had burdened him with remorse for not being able to prevent her injuries and the girl's disappearance.  
  
Plus the bloody tosser had ruined his last decent shirt.  
  
Bloody hell, this one definitely deserved a good and thorough ass kicking.  
  
Tightening his grip on the youngster's neck, he shoved his knee into his stomach, and the demon doubled over, his face going sour as if he had swallowed a lemon.  
  
Spike's lips pulled into a smirk. Seeing this piece of shit in pain did made him feel better, lifted some of the anger soaring through his system, never mind the fascist cop approach, his precious soul be damned.  
  
"Look who we have here." He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Well, if it isn't my ex favorite foaming lapdog. The one with the suicidal attitude, I wager."  
  
"The name is Herder." The younger vampire looked back at him, his ash blue eyes glistering with malice. "Let go of me. I'm not here to fight you."  
  
"Too bad that I happens to be too pissed to care *Herder*. Besides -" The blond vampire reached in his pockets and pulled out a wooden stake that he pushed on Herder's chest, just above the heart. "I believe you've done some damage to a friend of mine, remember the lady with the pointy sticks?"  
  
Spike had expected that his stalker turned victim would start twisting his knickers to get out of his hands alive, but instead, the younger vampire just grinned back at him with annoying confidence, and then, burst into a deranged laughing fit.  
  
"What's so funny here?" Spike frowned.  
  
"The Slayer." The crazy vampire snickered. "It's always about the Slayer, isn't it? I heard you, while you were tripping and drooling there on the lawn, calling out her name like a sick abandoned little puppy. You're pathetic!"  
  
"Am I?" The blond vampire's voice was calm, but there was a tinge of seething rage simmering.  
  
"My Sire was right, the Slayer has turned you into a monster." Herder continued boldly, his careless words fuelled by his insanity. "A freak, like the fucking elephant-man, no longer one of us, but not exactly one of them either. Tell me, what are you supposed to be now besides a good laugh?"  
  
"You bloody little twat!" Spike spat the words out as if he tasted something foul, his rage no longer in control. "Shut up! She never turned me into a monster!"  
  
"She changed you, twisted every root of your being." The youngster's eyes grew wide with a strange mixture of madness and lucidity. "She gave you remorse. She gave you a sense of guilt." Herder's fingers reached out and fluttered just above the blond vampire's heart, catching tiny sparkles of energy in the air. The light of a spirit housed in this unbeating vessel.  
  
The young vampire's mad grin widened into an all-knowing smile.  
  
"Tell me friend, how do you sleep lately? Any anxious nightmares involving vindictive spirits, humans with slit throats, blistered features and hollow eye sockets coming out to get you yet?"  
  
"How-How do you know that?"  
  
"And what about the Slayer. Do you dream about her? Tell me, did you hurt her too?" Something thin and fragile snapped inside of Spike at the very moment that the deranged vampire mentioned his hidden pain, and the blond grabbed the smart-mouthed fledgling by his wrists, forced him to turn around and slammed his face against the bricks. The sharp edges of the stones cut Herder's skin open and he cried out hectically as Spike forced his stake into his right leg. It gouged right though his arteries and came out again, red and gluey, at the other side.  
  
"Anything else you fancy to say?" Spike's voice trembled with deadly rage. His demon was surfacing and taken over control rapidly. There wasn't enough guilt inside his tortured soul to restrain this rampant, menacing darkness.  
  
Which was just too bad for the little sick bastard.  
  
With a careless wrench, he removed the stake imbedded in Herder's leg, leaving the wound open. It caused dark blood to gush out the exposed lesion at a dangerous pace.  
  
"If you don't want to talk, let's do a little experiment shall we? How many holes shall it take to drain you completely dry?"  
  
This time, Spike was able to reach Herder through the thick smog of his madness and make him care about the continuation of his existence at least a little.  
  
"What do you think? Will two be enough?" The sharp end of the wood traveled up, and halted just above Herder's right collarbone. Its pointy tip stung into his pale flesh. "It should be, if I make a large enough hole in here." And he accentuated his last words by pushing the stake deeper into his victim's neck. "I bet it will squirt out like a bloody fountain. The main arties are always a good laugh to rupture."  
  
"No! Don't! Please Don't!" Herder's throat was suddenly dry and a chill went through his spine as he noticed the blond vampire's darkened eyes. Spike was not in game-face yet, but there wasn't a trace of the humanity he had seen earlier in him left. His piercing blue orbs were cold and dead except for the spark of anger blazing beneath the surface, and the younger vampire realized then, that this was the ferocious demon that was still hidden inside this man who he had anticipated to be pitifully weakened by compassion.  
  
"Spike." He spoke his name with a hint of recognition and fear, as he was immediately reminded to his revered Sire's wicked companion. "Don't hurt me! I'm only here to deliver a message. I have a message from Drusilla for you."  
  
The blond vampire's grasp on the youngster weakened warily.  
  
"What does she want?" Spike frowned, as he suddenly remembered. "Speaking of her, what did she do with that girl you sick bastards took?" His instincts and common sense told him that there wasn't a chance in heaven that the girl would have survived a month in his ex's mad company, the poor girl should have been buried and turned into compost for Dru's precious roses by now, but still, he wanted to know.  
  
He had to know what his daft incapability had cost the innocent. His vicious, almost Catholic sized guilt demanded it.  
  
"She killed her. Burnt her into a cinder." Herder spoke coldly. Observing the growing expression of discontent on the older vampire's face, he added hastily; "It doesn't matter, she is dead now, and so will be the Slayer if you don't get to the Bronze real soon."  
  
"What -" A cold clutched Spike's heart and he blinked his eyes in dreadful disbelief. "Are you rambling about?!"  
  
"The Slayer. My Sire is gonna kill the Slayer." There was that grin again, confident and infuriatingly annoying. "Her blood will stain the walls of that cheap booze hall a pretty color crimson."  
  
"Not bloody likely." Spike smirked, lightheartedly. He might be sickly concerned about Buffy, but his ex Drusilla.well to be completely honest here.she was never quite the genius of the two of them. He had always been the one to come up with the petty ideas, while Dru had the concentration capacities of a Cocker Spaniel and was therefore unable to pull off any decent gigs. His ex might be a powerful, century old vampire, but without a proper plan provided by someone with a less nutty set of brains, she's not gonna succeed in harming anyone but herself. Come to think of it, it was probably more realistic to start worrying about Dru then the Slayer.  
  
"She said that she expected you to be there, to watch the Slayer die. Perhaps that will persuade you to come back to her. Lose this silly white hat's business that suits you so badly."  
  
"Not that this whole drooling nutcase act looks very flattering on you either." Spike lifted the stake from Herder's neck. Although there was a pretty large part in him that wanted to dust that evil wanker, there were rules of courtesy that had to be applied in times of war and conflict. You were not supposed to kill the messenger. In the old days of course, Spike would have cared less, and had already turned the little git into ashes by now, but unfortunately William seemed to be rather disapproving towards his violent tendencies, that bloody poofter.  
  
"Listen hollow brains, tell her that I won't come to watch her getting dusted. Tell her to get the hell out of Sunny D before the Slayer turns up with her stake-happy friends."  
  
"You have to go to see her Darkness. The Slayer doesn't know it yet."  
  
"Doesn't know what?"  
  
"About the killing of course. The needless spilling of the blood of the innocent. You don't expect my Sire to just sit and wait there for you at the bar with a tequila sunsrise and a serving of cocktail wieners?"  
  
Spike fell silent for a moment, a dreadful sense of premonition rumbling in the pit of his stomach. Images of hideous crimes flooded into his mind, bodies of innocent people, stacked up pile after pile and fed his ever- growing guilt into monstrous proportions.  
  
"How many?" he asked, his voice deceivingly calm.  
  
"How many what?"  
  
"How many fucked up wankers like you are at the Bronze right now?"  
  
Herder glared at him from underneath dark brows and lazy eyelids, his piecing eyes glowing like beacons in the night. He looked absolutely demonic.  
  
"How many hungry vampires do you need to slaughter a couple of hundred humans? You tell me. You should have the knowledge acquired by years of experience to figure it out yourself." 


	13. Darkness awaits 8

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 8  
  
There was something horribly wrong with the road.  
  
They were driving in Giles's outdated car, a worn and battered gray-blue Citroen that groaned with every turn and made so much noise that Buffy suspected that there was a poor animal trapped underneath the cap. She didn't understand why Giles didn't get rid of the old thing, it wasn't like he couldn't effort a new one with the money he was making with the magic shop. The leather on the seats was shabby and smelly as a total amount of at least twenty hot summers worth of sweat had seeped into the pores. The Giles' old-timer of course, had no air conditioning whatsoever. Even the tiny switch-light in the roof was busted. Above all that, the vehicle had an awful suspension system and she could feel every hump in the road shudder through her spine, making her head nod involuntarily.  
  
For some strange reason, there were a lot of humps on this side of Kings Road tonight.  
  
"My dear God." The watcher muttered, his face a grim shade of pale. "What is this.this atrocity?"  
  
The car's sparse headlights split a way through the darkness and revealed the asphalt in front of them, littered with bodies. They turned up in the beams, pale and ghostly, appearing to be not made out of solid matter at all; so very unlikely was their presence. However, that changed quickly as the small French car drove over the human remains, and the cracking of bones and squishy sounds of pulverized tissues reached the gang all the way through the tires, followed by a jolt that lifted all three of them an inch from their seats in an awkwardly cheery way. As they came down again, the bumper scratched nosily over the road.  
  
"Giles! For God's sake drive around them!" Willow screamed from the backseat, horrified as she was. The witch had a very vivid picture in her head of what was going on a few feet beneath them.  
  
"I'm trying! I'm trying! I just can't see a bloody thing out there!" The watcher yelled. He was right. The streetlights and the bright neon-signs outside the shops that normally illuminated the busy street were all put out unexpectedly, leaving the road in blinding darkness.  
  
"Stop the car!" Buffy yelled, suddenly realizing that their humpy ride over the corpses would be even more horrendous if there was still somebody alive out there. "Pull over! Pull over NOW!"  
  
Giles picked up the hint in his pupil's anxious voice, and stepped on the break with his entire weight. He then tried to steer the vehicle around the body of a young girl that loomed closer and closer while the tires shrieked and continued to eat away stretches of the dark asphalt and white lines.  
  
They came to a halt with the car's bumper just inches away from the dead girl's face.  
  
Giles sank back into his seat. Drops of respiration dripped along his temples and his glasses were all obscured by a dull haze. Trembling slightly, he released the wheel and removed his spectacles to wipe them clean.  
  
"Girls, are-are you both all right?"  
  
"Uhuh. I guess so." Buffy responded, grimly. "At least for the circumstances.I think I should be considered to be okay."  
  
"What-What happened here?" Willow asked. She hesitatingly moved to the side window and glanced outside. She didn't saw much, but around the patches of light that the car's tail and headlights provided, she could just distinguish the human forms lying scattered across the road, dropped there as if they were sandbags in a military operation to prevent the enemy from advancing. The witch had a hard time observing the horrific murder scene. She didn't really want to look at all those dead people with their slit throats and horrific injuries. They had empty eyes and anxious expressions that lingered on their faces after their violent death had claimed them. But she could hardly control herself from staring.  
  
It reminded her of how Tara and Warren looked like when they died.  
  
Willow shut her eyes forcefully. The horror of this massacre had just become a tad worse for the witch.  
  
"All these poor innocent people. It's horrible." Her voice was shaking, dark memories stirring inside her troubled mind. "It's just brutal! Who or what ever has done this has no conscience at all! Only a cold hearted monster could have done this!"  
  
"Will, calm down." Buffy noticed the anxiety in her friend's words with a growing sense of dread.  
  
"It's all right Willow. None of this is your fault." The watcher tried. He understood the witch's reaction immediately. He had been helping Willow to cope with the consequences of her fall into black magic the whole summer after Xander had finally stopped her from sucking the world into a dark pool of oblivion. He had counseled her through her magic addiction. Taught her how to control it instead of letting it control her. Although he was able to get her going again and she was now functioning properly within the group, there were still things left at the back of her mind where the watcher's kind and considerate words could not reach. Black things that hurt and wouldn't allow her to become the go-happy witch again, and the Watcher doubted regretfully if there was even a possibility for her to revert completely to her old self. Too many dreadful things had happened that just couldn't be erased, ever. "You are helping us, Willow." Giles looked her straight into the eyes. "You're here to stop those who are responsible of this heinous deed and prevent them from causing all of this pain and misery ever again. You hear me?"  
  
"Stick with me, Will. Please." Buffy said softly and squeezed gently in her friend's hand.  
  
Willow gazed back at her worried friends, then nodded slowly, and sucked in a deep breath of air to calm herself.  
  
The sound of a approaching vehicle cut through the unusual silence, followed by a pair of headlights turning up the street, heading towards them at an unhealthy speed hat would make the driver lose control of his car as soon as it hit one of the human barricades scattered all over the road. Giles and Buffy jumped out of the Citroen, and started waving frantically, trying to warn the driver and make him come to a halt.  
  
It turned out to be Xander's dark blue Buick, and thanks to Giles considerable height, he saw them just in time to prevent an accident from happening.  
  
Willow stepped out of the backseat, her pale hands clutched onto the cool steel of the ajar car-door as she was still shaking on her feet, just when Xander killed the engine and got out to meet the rest of the gang. He had stopped a long way down the road, and had to walk a considerable distance right through the horrible scene. By the time he was standing in front of his friends, his face had the color of a creamy dairy product.  
  
"What - How? Why!?" He stammered, looking around, dazed. "Did the vampires do this?" There was sound of utter disbelief in his voice.  
  
"We're not sure. But whoever did this certainly tried to get our attention." Giles opted. He was ready with wiping his glasses clean, and together with the fogginess most of his anxiety and sense of bewilderment had been removed out of his system as well. He could almost think clearly again.  
  
"Where is Dawn?" Buffy asked worriedly, remembering that Xander had took her out on patrol when he called back from a payphone to warn them that there was major trouble brewing at the Bronze.  
  
"She's okay. She didn't get to see any of this." He waved with his hands in a panicky gesture. "Thank God on my shaky bare knees for that. I dropped her off at the hospital together with that injured lady I found on Main Street and told her to stay there and wait for one of us to pick her up again. She put up a tantrum of whiny buts trying to persuade me otherwise, but I figured that it was the cleverest thing to do. I don't want to bring her along on our first date with a bunch of crazed out angry vamps."  
  
"Good thinking." Buffy opted, sighing in relief.  
  
"In that case I've a bit of a less brilliant question too. Are we sure that we're dealing with the dusty type of demon here?" Xander asked. "I mean, we've encountered some pretty mean bloodsuckers before, but none of them were ever viciously brassy enough to pave the entire road with corpses to welcome the Slayer. What's going on? Is he really trying to piss her off or what?"  
  
"He's trying to scare and impress us with all of this.this mindless killing." Giles had trouble finding the right words that didn't show his total disgust and loathing for their unknown enemy in a too vulgar way. "Our brute fiend has obviously some knowledge on how to use physiological warfare. Making us fear him even well before the real confrontation."  
  
"So he isn't the usual stereotype with a brain the size of a walnut, it's still not impressive enough to me scare me away." Buffy said, angry and somewhat irritated. All this bloodshed was just because this monster of the week wanted to give them a bit of the wiggins? How sick and twisted is that? "The way things are going, he really doesn't need to do anything more to upset me. I've already scheduled him for an urgent appointment with the pointy end of my stake."  
  
"Perhaps it's not one very clever, but a whole bunch of incredibly stupid sloppy vampires! The types that don't know how to clean up and do the dishes after dinner." Xander opted. He believed that they were giving the fanged fiends far too much credential. Most of the bloodsuckers they had dusted over the years were just of the growly and dumb as a bag filled with anvils kind, with Angelus, Spike and Drusilla being the scarce exceptions that proved the rule.  
  
Yes well, it's only a theory of course. I admit that it could have also been a serious attack of a South American species of giant mosquitoes that sucked up these people's blood." Giles answered with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "However, we should take the other possibility into account as well. Be careful and stay together."  
  
"Guys." Willow said, sensing creatures moving in the darkness around them. "I think our mysterious baddie knows that we are here."  
  
Buffy turned around and gazed into the direction that Willow had indicated with a little nod. Her eyes, as efficient in the darkness as the eyes of the night dwelling creatures that she was destined to hunt down, caught a glimpse of motion in the shades of gray.  
  
"Willow is right. The welcome comity has arrived. Whatever they are we're bound to find out pretty soon."  
  
She ducked, her loose blond blocks danced in front of her eyes as she felt a gush of wind brush slightly over her head. The razor sharp, steel ring missed her by less then an inch and split the bark of an unlucky tree.  
  
They appeared out of the shadows one by one. Men and women, their features horribly twisted and crude, viciousness burnt in the yellow orbs that were their eyes. Some had blood trickling down their chin.  
  
Oh yeah, Buffy thought, definitely vampires. She realized this notion not without a sense of relief. Vampires were the type of monsters that she should be able to handle.  
  
"Okay, whoever is responsible for this mess is gonna get grounded for the rest of eternity, as for the rest of you; no dinner and TV before sunrise." She joked without a trace of humor in her voice. She didn't mean to be funny, not even in a sarcastic sort of way. After what she had witnessed tonight, she was ready to turn enough of these vamps into dust to clog a jumbo-sized vacuum cleaner.  
  
They moved in like a hungry pack of wolfs, attacking all at once. 


	14. Darkness awaits 9

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 9  
  
For all his years of living, or rather unliving, Spike had encountered truckloads of demons whose attitude he couldn't quite take, but Herder here was definitely one of the high-rankers on the blond vampire's "can't stand that git" -list. It was almost impossible to get any bit of useful information out of him between the mad giggling, rambling and out of tune singing, and Spike felt as if he was trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle of a million pieces with the clock set on five seconds before doom. He considered leaving the information as it was and turn to the slayer to warn her that there was trouble brewing at the Bronze. But then he remembered how things got out of hand the last time she faced Dru's moronic minions, and he didn't want to put her in unnecessary danger. He didn't know how many vamps were waiting for her at the Bronze and what Dru was up to yet, although he wasn't expecting it to be much to be totally frank. It would be all right if she and the Scoobies allowed him to tag along and lend them a hand, he could waste a couple of vamps and try to keep her safe from harm, even if it would cost him his own bony hide. But she probably wouldn't accept his help. Probably didn't even want to see him around anywhere near her.  
  
And she is absolutely right, Spike. You've violated the lady's trust. You've hurt her and made her feel small, vulnerable and disgusted. None of the demons she had faced up against had ever accomplished that, except perhaps for your monstrous grand Sire Angelus. You've broken your promise, and you should keep yourself away from the lady.  
  
It would be the best thing to do for both of them.  
  
Spike shook his head to get rid of inner his voice of reason, of guilt. William's voice. The traumatized poet in him surface from time to time, just like the demon did, although it wasn't strong enough to take over control completely. William August Byron had always been a bit of a wuss.  
  
But the poofter had a point; leading Buffy right into the bloodstained hands of his revengeful ex and watch the two of them bitch-fight each other to death, was not gonna work for him.  
  
He had to sort this problem out himself. Perhaps he could convince Dru to let her hostages go, to leave before the Slayer showed up and one of them end up dead or dusted. Dru wasn't clever, last time she came back he tricked her and had tied up to a pole in no time. And he could do it again, only this time it would be for her own good.  
  
He eventually tried to strike a deal with the youngster, and promised Herder that he will let him go if he helped him to sneak into the Bronze without tripping over the warning system.  
  
"And what if I refuse?" Herder asked, rather nonchalantly. "I don't want to betray my dark queen. Some of us still have a sense of chivalry in our cold, non beating hearts." He raised his brows meaningfully and gave Spike an accusing look.  
  
"If you refuse." The blond vampire answered, blinking his eyes in irritation. "I'm gonna stake you good and proper. And you'll die, again. Bearing the bloody notion that your queen is gonna end up in the same dusty way as you did." He licked his lips and tried another approach. Perhaps the demented wanker cared enough for Dru to fall for this one. "And guess what?" He scoffed. "It will be all your fault for not warning her to get out of the Slayer's way."  
  
"Liar! My Sire is gonna turn the Slayer and her naïve friends into shreds of meat hanging from a butcher's hook. She knows what she's doing, and she has many loyal followers like myself to aid her in her battle."  
  
"Agreed, Dru can be quite the charmer with her fancy visions and twirly dance and all that. I bet she told the lot of you she's gonna take over the Hellmouth, right?"  
  
"She had mentioned our eminent victory occasionally." Herder said, in a matter of fact voice.  
  
"It's all bullocks you know."  
  
"What do you mean?" The youngster asked. "She is gifted with the sight, and she saw it happen! It has to be true!"  
  
"Well, the trouble with interpreting Dru's special gigs is that she also happens to be as mad as a revolving door. I won't deny that she's able to know stuff before they happen. She got it right from time to time, like that bit she said about the man in a white mechanical suit landing on a revolving lump of clay in the sky, and about people wearing sweatbands on their daft heads in the eighties. Bloody hell, I sure didn't expect that to catch on."  
  
Herder struggled to free his arms from Spike's loosened grip, invoking some very rough handling by the blond vampire as he grabbed Herder's right hand and bended it backwards till it snapped with a dry sound. The fledgling screamed in pain and frustrated anger.  
  
"Where was I?" Spike smirked. "Oh yeah, bla bla bla Dru can see into the future, bla bla bla mad as a fat man on a hunger-strike, bla bla bla pink collored sweatbands are moronic fashion statements, and then I accidentally broke your wrist for not sticking to the lesson here. Right. Just needed a bit of a recap. So as I tried to tell you before I was so very rudely interrupted, Drusilla is more often wrong then right because she can't keep her hallucinations out of her visions. She tells about them both and thinks that they are both the same thing. So her prophecy of killing the Slayer to rule over Hellmouth Sunny D could have been nothing more then an invention of her sweaty delusions. And since I kinda know the Chosen One who had lurked around this place, staking the town clean of demons, hellgods, and vampires and all, I can assure you that it pretty much sounds more like a wet dream to me then a real blink into the future."  
  
Herder gazed up at him, his brows furrowed in confusion.  
  
"She can't be in real danger. Not with all of us around to protect her. Can she?"  
  
It was hard to notice in the shadows, but Spike's lips just curled into something that was the equivalent of a victorious grin, a hidden one that was, since he didn't want to let the little git know that he had got him exactly where he wanted.  
  
"Believe what you want." He shrugged. "But hey, is the Pope a Roman Catholic?"  
  
It didn't take long anymore for Spike to convince Herder, and both vamps left the cemetery, heading east. They walked down Main Street, the younger vampire limping up front, while Spike tailed him in silence, watching his movements cautiously. Just before they reached the turn into Kings Road where the colorful façade of the Bronze with the bright neon letters lured, Herder guided him into an alleyway where he claimed to know a backstage door. It was used for the performing bands to pack and unpack their gear, and it led indirectly to the bar and dance area via the dressing rooms. It was not exactly the sneakiest way to get in, but still, it was a lot more devious then to wander in through the main entrance.  
  
"Here it is. It shouldn't be guarded. Our Darkness told us to keep the humans from running out of the building, not to keep an eye on anyone trying to get in." Herder gazed over his shoulder to look at Spike. "Au contrary, she was rather expecting it."  
  
Herder pulled down the handle and swung the door open easily, then stepped away to let Spike through.  
  
"You first." The blond grabbed the youngster by his shirt and flung him inside the darkened place. "I kinda have a thing against being knocked unconscious by nasties lurking in obscure passageways."  
  
Herder snorted, but kept his mouth shut, wisely. Spike sucked in a breath of cold air to calm his senses, and then went in as well.  
  
They walked through a narrow hall, reeking of beer, sweat and the gent's after a busy Saturday evening. It was filthy and tattered, with layers of aging pamphlets stuck on the walls, announcing the groups performing at the Bronze over a timeframe stretching from the crazy eighties till up to today. Spike blinked his eyes a couple of times in amazement as he recognized one of the artists in the faded pictures. Say, wasn't that Red's precious wolf-boy up there? Spike didn't know the pocket midget was in any band.  
  
Herder opened a door at the end of the corridor and went through, followed by a wary Spike.  
  
The small, crammed up space looked like it was used as a dressing annex storage room, with piles of wrinkled clothes tossed in the corners, and carton boxes stacked up under a long, narrow table. Its worn tabletop was partly buried under an armful of tiny knickknacks; lipsticks and hairbrushes and the occasional can of hairspray. Above the table hung a wall-sized mirror, complete with a frame made out of tiny light bulbs, giving that trace of sophisticated Hollywood glamour to the whole scene.  
  
At the other side of the room, almost completely obscured by a metal rack heavily loaded with Halloween costumes, was another door. From behind it came the scrambled noise of loud conversations and the monotonous humming of music. The normal sounds that were expected to come from any booze serving facility where people were trying to have a good time really, and for a moment the blond vampire had a speck of hope that perhaps Drusilla hadn't quite got to the mass murdering bit yet and was still waltzing around, nipping from the occasional unlucky teenager that happened to catch her fancy. However, the high-pitched shrieks that suddenly cut through the door, told him that he needed to get back to reality. Spike cursed. Why had everything to be so bloody difficult?  
  
Herder's hand rested on the doorknob, his blue eyes darted from Spike to the door and back again while he grinned dementedly.  
  
"Witness what's behind door number three, oh Bleached One, and behold." Herder said with a mocking theatrical voice. The younger vampire swung the door wide open before Spike had a chance to protest or launch at him to snap his remaining good hand. Herder bowed dramatically, and waved his hand in an inviting gesture. "For our kind, it's a brave new world."  
  
Spike peered into the darkened innards of the Bronze, and saw that the place was packed with vamps and humans, although the latter were not particularly enjoying their stay as much the demons did. Humans were strung up by their feet, and dangled upside down from the high ceiling beams supporting the upper deck. Some of them were still twitching as a steady gush of blood running out of a butcher's cut at the side of their neck leaked dark pools of scarlet on the floor. The vamps were putting beer mugs underneath, tapping their next feed fresh from the source. At the side near the bar, a young girl was strapped to the pool table,stripped naked as the day she was born. Her hands and feet were pierced with long pieces of broken cues, while a vampire in full game-face carved a doodle on her breasts using a pocketknife, and then licked the blood from her torn flesh while his victim screamed hoarsely.  
  
The rest of the human patrons, who weren't killed, stabbed or tortured yet, had been driven into a corner by the vamps, and squatted down on the floor, some of them covering their faces in misery, others gazed at the horrific scenes, their glassy eyes wide and paralyzed by shock. There was still a band playing on stage and the greasy haired members seemed to be, to Spike own amazement, quite unharmed, but there were vampires on both side of the performance area, gawking at the humans with hungry eyes and growling at them, sending constant fear into their bones.  
  
The vamps must have left the band alive to supply some bloody awful background music for their murder-fest, Spike thought, feeling uneasy, guess the special ambiance of torn guts and split skulls wasn't quite enough. Some demons were just difficult to please.  
  
On the shelves above the bar where usually the more fancy liquor was stored, were now rows of decapitated heads on display. Men and Woman with savage cuts at the corner of their mouth that reached up their ears. They had been there for a while, and the hot spotlights that illuminated this gruesome exhibit, had dried the skin, making it pull up the upper lips, expoing the teeth underneath so that the heads appeared to be smiling like freaky jack-o-lanterns.  
  
So this, Spike reasoned, was how bloody hell looked like if Dru happens to be in charge.  
  
Herder took a confident step into the facility, his devilish grin never leaving his face.  
  
" Come on, what are you waiting for? You've come so far, and put so much effort in convincing me. Don't you want to save your precious humans?"  
  
The conscientious vampire regarded the fledgling with a mixture of rage, fear, contempt and self-hatred. Contempt because the bloody wanker had set him up, this wasn't the quiet entry he asked for. Several heads of the ruling species in this inferno had already turned to regard them both and if the feeling in his guts were true that every vamp in Sunny D had showed up tonight, it wouldn't take long before he was recognized. Although souled and chipped, Spike had no trouble whatsoever with putting up a fight against his fellow demons to defend himself, but here he was outnumbered by, well let's say seventy bloodthirsty vamps to one. That wasn't very good.  
  
He should have been more careful, that was the bloody problem! Spike mentally cursed and kicked himself, loathing in self-hatred. He should have known that Dru's lapdog was not to be trusted, should have dusted him when he still got the chance and go to the Bronze on his own. Now the wanker was here in his own territory and the only thing he had to do was to give a yell to get him into troubles of the life threatening kind.  
  
That, and he had been arrogant enough to underestimate Dru's organization capacities. He had expected a handful of minions, fledglings for whom he wouldn't break a sweat to dust. But this whole crowd was far too much for him alone to handle, there were just too many, and stepping inside right now to try to rescue the remaining humans would be suicide, plain and simple.  
  
If he was smart and had any sense of preservation, he should just leg it and leave the vamps to their jolly happy hour, perhaps wait for the Slayer and the Slayeretts to come and then do the semi heroic stuff. Be the yellow egocentric git that had saved his bony hide from more then multiple disasters in the past and turn around, walk out of this nightmare place and slam the door shut behind him.  
  
He wasn't any good to anybody if he was turned into a bloody pulp, right?  
  
His mind was racing while his emotions fought each other; fear and guilt whacking each other on the head while none of them appeared out of the battle as an obvious winner, when he caught sight of the girl strapped on the pool table. Her screaming had stopped and he had figured that she had passed out, but instead, her eyes were open and were staring at him, standing there emotionless in the doorway. Lips were moving underneath a piece of thin cloth used to gag her and she uttered a muffled, desperate sound. She blinked with her hazel eyes and they pleaded with him to help her. She needed his help now, or she would die under her torment. She wouldn't live long enough for the professional vamp busters to arrive to set things right.  
  
Spike tightened his jaw and breathed in deep through his nose, his eyes blazing with determination.  
  
Guess the lady had to do with an amateur.  
  
He stepped into the open, his hands clenched into white knuckled fists, his glare deadly and hostile, the demon slamming and roaring just underneath his human will. Somewhere at the back of his head, William's voice told him in his perfect nancyboy accent that he was absolutely doing the right thing. That this sacrifice would lift some of his agonizing guilt gouging his heart and mind. That it would be worth the pain and the agony. Horrible death and bludgeoning be damned.  
  
Spike smirked sourly, always knew the right words to say to lift up his mood, that William did.  
  
The door at his back slammed shut with a loud bang. Spike didn't react to it, he didn't have to turn around to know that there were now vampires standing in front of the exit, blocking his way out. After all, he had already figured out that this was a trap. A clack when it snapped when the mouse got caught was to be expected.  
  
Herder's form which had been curved in pain because of his injuries, straightened and he cleared his throat with a gleeful gleam in his eyes.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen." He announced, his voice loud and shrill of sudden overexcitement. "Our guest of honor has arrived. I trust you to know what to do to welcome him."  
  
They bloody well did know what to do. The cheery atmosphere among the demons reverted into a threatening silence. Event the relentless music stopped. A couple of tall, heavy and mean looking vamps in biker shirts and leather trousers came from behind their tables and cracked their knuckles in anticipation. Other party participants, their guts hanging over their belts from excessive feeding and their chin smudged with crusted blood, left their bloody drinks for what they were and reached for their weapons if they had any; pocketknives, baseball bats, and broken chair legs. Someone in the biker crowd had a rattling set of chains in his hand, to which a heavy looking hook was attached. They formed a circle around the blond vampire, their hostile faces changing into game-face rapidly. Spike looked around, biting on his lower lip. The circle of bloodthirsty vampires was closing in on him, becoming smaller and smaller. 


	15. Darkness awaits 10

CHAPTER 2: DARKNESS AWAITS  
  
PART 10  
  
The Scoobies were caught up in the heat of the battle. Combat sounds cleft the nightly silence and sent any other careless human ignorant enough to venture into Kings Road turning around and fleeing into the opposite direction. Giles and Xander eliminated hordes of advancing vampires, firing burning bolts at them with their crossbows. Luckily, they had been ambushed nearby the watcher's car, and they had managed to open the back trunk to get hold of their weapons before the demons attacked with full force. Xander could feel his heart throb in his throat, the adrenalin feeding his veins sharpened his senses till his finger on the firing mechanism had become short-wired with his sight; any object moving gracelessly in the darkness that he couldn't identify as one of his friends, gets a flaming wooden stake right through its heart. He had just sent a maliciously grinning female vamp back to the Never Never in a scattering cloud of glowing cinder, when he caught sight of Willow. The witch had also a crossbow in her trembling hands, but wasn't using it. She backed up instead, threatened by a duo of vampires, one tall and skinny with long greasy hair, the other short but bulky with his upper lip pulled up, bearing his fangs in sheer malice.  
  
Willow stepped back warily, her heart fluttering in her chest like a brittle butterfly caught in a net. She was in panic, and didn't know what to do. She had tried to fight the demons in the only way that she had considered natural to her, which was by using magic. She was a full-fledged genuine witch, she knew what she was capable of if she set her mind to it and put her will into her spells. She should be able to blast these terrible creatures from the face of the earth, prevent them from harming her or any of her friends. So she muttered the Latin words over her lips, fixated her will on one single thought, an image of both of her attackers hurled away by a gush of wind and blown twenty feet into the air. She summoned the energy of her spirit, the fuel to power this spell, and transferred it into something substantial, something real, a hurricane to save her from the advancing demons.  
  
But nothing happened.  
  
Nothing at all.  
  
Willow whimpered as both demons drove her with her back against the car, their lumpy features showing full mockery as they observed and sensed her fear. Shocked with the notion that she was as helpless as a kitten, she became partly paralyzed and her legs neglected her desperate orders to take a run for it.  
  
What are you doing Rosenberg? Do something! Quick! Use the crossbow! Use the crossbow!  
  
Willow obeyed her panicky inner voice and raised her weapon that she had almost forgotten all about, and aimed it at both of them by swaying it from one vamp to the other.  
  
"Don't come any closer!" She said, voice trembling. "I've a got weapon and I'm not - "  
  
She squeaked as the bulky vamp whacked the crossbow out of her hands. The wooden bow was sent flying over her shoulders, and landed at the other side of vehicle, out of her reach.  
  
"You were saying, little girl?" The vampire scoffed, his face so close that Willow could smell his cigarette, alcohol and fried union breath.  
  
Okay, that didn't work. But-but you still can scream right? Call for Buffy! Call for help! Call for help NOW!  
  
But Willow believed that she had a better idea. She just couldn't believe that she was this useless, this easy to get. The spell, it should have worked. A wind spell was almost one of the easiest enchantments to perform. She must have done something wrong in her haste. She must try again.  
  
The spell had to work, or else she was no longer the powerful witch she needed herself to be, but the soft and reliable nerdy girl of high school that was ignored by everybody. An useless nobody.  
  
Instead of doing the sensible thing, her mouth started muttering hardly pronounceable words, her was heart wavering with fear, hatred and self loathing, all of that she pushed far back in her mind to concentrate on the irresolute spell that just seemed unwilling to catch that spark of ignition.  
  
When both demons charged at her, their fangs bare and bloodlust blazing in their eyes, she closed her own and wished herself dead for failing again.  
  
She was surprised to hear the vamps crying out in pain instead of herself, and as she opened her eyes, she was just on time to see their flesh burn away in ashes and tumble to the ground in two neat little cones.  
  
Xander was standing twenty feet away from her, using his crossbow to clear out the area around the witch to secure her safety. Willow had just sucked in a couple of breaths to put her mind together when another vamp hurled himself at her in a blur of exposed fangs, grabby hands and yellow, blood thirsting eyes. She screamed, when Buffy pulled her away from danger and took care of the demon, kicking it full in his chest and sent him crashing into a streetlight. She turned towards Willow.  
  
"Will, whatever is going on in your head, snap out of it! This isn't the right time!"  
  
Buffy pushed a stake into her friend's hand and continued her fight. She swirled around, facing two vamps attacking her from both sides at once. She jumped up, booted the right one in mid air, and used his body to push herself off into a spinning kick and hurled the left one down as well.  
  
She landed on her feet, pulling a fresh stake out from underneath her belt.  
  
"Okay you lumpy bastards, which one of you want to go first?"  
  
Both vampires got back on their feet and charged, Buffy waited till the big lumps were only a nose-length left away from her, then she suddenly ducked and the two morons banged into each other under much loud swearing. Buffy looked up from her crouched position, caved in between the two large vamps like a skinny football player locked between two sturdy opponents, only they weren't really wearing any protective helmets here. Perfect for an uppercut. Buffy's fist connected with the jaw of one of the vamps, the impact shattered the bone and knocked the demon from his feet. She swirled, her twirling locks thrown into the other demon's eyes, blinding him temporarily. Buffy caught this opportunity to drive her stake straight through the vampire's heart and poof; the evil bloodsucking fiend was no more.  
  
I have to remember this for one, Buffy thought, Slayer with a short cut twirly hairdo, twice as deadly.  
  
She made quick work of the other vampire with a series of kicks, punches and eventually the jab with the stake on the right place. It wasn't as effective as her newly invented twirling hair maneuver, but it did the trick. The dust of her last victim had not settled yet, or another company of angry vamps presented themselves to fight the Slayer to the death guided by their almost stubborn eagerness and stupidity.  
  
Buffy wasn't the kind of person who could easily break someone's heart, so she helped these vamps out and continued to send them back to hell, one by one.  
  
The night was young, and although there seemed to be a continuous stream of attacking vamps replacing the dusted ones, she wasn't even breaking a sweat yet. Her muscles seemed to relax instead of straining as she danced her dance of death among the dangerous creatures, her heartbeat fastened, her skin buzzed with energy and her feet were a fast as lightening. She had been inactive for a whole month and it was time to stretch those slaying muscles again. The rush coming from each impact of her blows, each well out- maneuvered, successful dodge, told her that she loved it. She was made for this.  
  
The Slayer was so caught up in combat that she didn't notice that the some of the vamps retreated and vanished in the shadows. She also didn't see the group of demons stalking around the group of humans, pouring a dark liquid substance on the road. They worked fast and efficiently, using buckets filled up to the rim with the obscure fluid to create a large, closed circle around the Slayer and her friends. On four corners of the ring, four demons knelt down simultaneously and bit open their wrists, dripping blood on the black asphalt. Their lips moved as they uttered a string of words coming from a language that had been dead for more then a century. Dipping in a finger into the small puddles of blood, they drew markings on the ground, symbols of mystical power that started to glow as they threw their alien words out into the cold night air.  
  
Buffy and the others didn't notice that there was something fishy going on till it was already too late.  
  
The demons waiting in the shadows started to chant in unison. Their voices monotonous and low, their mantra vibrated the air like an airplane engine roaring to life. The words were lost, but the sounds were there; rhythmical, enticing and dangerous. It surprised the Slayerets, and most of the demons that were still in the circle made use of their distraction to get out of there. The loud humming increased in ferocity till it became a roaring racket, loud enough to scatter the windshield and side windows of Giles' car. The ground itself was shaking as if struck by an earthquake.  
  
"What's going on?" Xander yelled, grabbing on to the car's roof to steady himself. Frowning, he asked. "Is this another apocalypse I don't know about? Why didn't you guys tell me that there was another apocalypse?!" Giles swayed unsteadily on his feet, but still held on to his crossbow that he had aimed at a particular large vamp lurking at him. He seemed in control of the situation, till his spectacles slid down his nose and he became almost as optically challenged as his pupil was a month ago.  
  
"Oh good Lord, this is clearly not going to work." He muttered, before he raised his arm and tried to shield himself as the demon charged at him, fangs bared.  
  
Giles pulled a stake out of one of the many pockets in his jacket, and slammed it into the heinous creature's heart. It burnt into a cloud of ashes raining down on his face and suit. He coughed, breathed-in vampdust irritating his lungs.  
  
"Buffy! Xander! Willow! Get into the car! I don't know what they are trying to do, but for some particular reason, the vampires are retreating. Getting away from us on purpose, which possibly means that we are in some kind of real danger here. We have to get to - We -" Giles wheezed, caught in a sudden coughing fit.  
  
"Gotcha." Buffy answered and pulled the watcher by his arm towards the vehicle. Giles' hand slipped into his pockets to find the keys. "You know, you really should let me drive. Let me get a couple more of them killed on our way out." Buffy opted in a half joking kind of way. The Watcher had found his car-key and held it in his right hand as far away from his pupil as possible. "Not a chance." He muttered.  
  
Xander had already opened the frontseat door and was brushing off the shards of glass from the seats using his crossbow when Willow suddenly yelled at him.  
  
"Xander! Get away from the car!"  
  
He looked up in surprise and saw a gang of demons throwing flaming bottles at him. He leaped away on time and the generous serving of Molotov cocktails landed on the frontseats, where they exploded, creating a wave of cindering heat and destructive flames.  
  
The quaking finally stopped and the Scoobies gathered swiftly to move away from the burning Citroen before the flames would eventually reach the gas tank and blow the old timer up into bits of smoldering metal.  
  
"Guess that's the end of the road for Giles' smelly old French car." Xander joked, he caught the disapproving look the watcher was giving him and added swiftly. "Not that it was a bad car of course. If you could ignore the jammed gear, the rumbling outlet, the dead cat smell in the leather, yeah, I'd say it was still quite drivable and I for one offer my sincere condolences for its tragic lost."  
  
Giles sighed.  
  
"Please Xander, if you're trying to console me, please, do stop. Anyway, it isn't necessary, I'm already over it."  
  
Buffy, running ahead of the group, looked over her shoulder and blinked in surprise.  
  
"Really? I thought you loved that car and never wanted to get rid of it?"  
  
"Well, he was getting rather old. Besides, I wasn't particularly looking forward to pick the pieces of human flesh out of the profiles of the tires after this was over."  
  
"Huh." Buffy uttered, she turned her head again and slammed with her nose into something solid and invisible.  
  
"Auw! Son of a -" She bit on her lower lip to swallow the pain in her throbbing nose. "What is this?"  
  
She reached out tentatively, her fingers toughing a smooth, hard surface. It felt cold as ice but was as transparent as air. She traced it, and found its presence stretching out from side to side bending inward slightly, from all the way down where it melted into the road till as high as she could possibly reach.  
  
"There is a wall here. An invisible one. Am I funny to think that this has something to do with that chorus of chanting demons and that miniature earthquake?"  
  
"This must be somekind of a magical boundary, and those singing vampires were trying to erect this to keep up inside." Willow said, and looked down to search for any markings. "There! You see that line? I bet that's going all the way around us in a wide circle."  
  
"Of course." Gilles uttered. "They were doing a protection spell for immortals, creating a barrier to contain mortal flesh." He lifted his glasses, and squinted his eyes. "I thought I kind of recognized the noisy chanting and the mysterious shaking part."  
  
"Oh do please translate this for us common folk, you enlightened Watching One." Xander said dryly.  
  
"The spell creates a barrier for humans and any other living creature that isn't immortal. It keeps them inside a magical ring, but immortal creatures like hell-gods and demons -"  
  
"And vampires." Added Willow.  
  
"Yes, vampires too, I'm afraid. They are able to enter the circle. Which means that -"  
  
"We're stuck in some kind of weird cage-fight, only the heavyweight opponents can leave the ring whenever it pleases them and we're trapped in here with Giles' small French car about to go Kla-bloowey within cindering distance." Xander clarified, nervousness sounding through his voice.  
  
"Well, yes, I guess that's a very crude way of putting it." Giles said, a bit irritated by their constant interruption.  
  
"We have to get out of here." Buffy said determinedly. She faced the invisible wall and tried to punch a hole in it. Her fist bunched right off as the fabric give in a little with the impact and threw the total amount of focused energy back into her arm. Buffy was surprised; she had expected that, if her Slayer strength failed to break into the barrier, she would hurt herself badly since she clearly remembered the damage the solid structure had done to her nose, just by walking into it. Now, the whole thing seemed as bunchy and flexible as a beachball.  
  
"It doesn't look good." She uttered, sucking a breath of hot air, as the blazing Citroen warmed the cold October night not far behind her.  
  
It doesn't look good indeed. The vampires, knowing that the stake-party was trapped between the burning vehicle and the magical wall, advanced out of the darkness in which they were lurking. There were more of them now then even before the barrier was raised, and all of them knew very well that the tables were turned, not only because they outnumbered the Slayer and his group by ten to one, but also because they knew that they could shield themselves from their attacks behind the ring. Under these notions, the demons grew bolder and their attack became more brutal.  
  
Ten to fifteen of them stepped in at once with white knuckled fists and murder blazing in their yellow eyes. Buffy and the Scoobies fought them as best as they could. The Slayer blocked a punch coming from one of the attacking vamps, grabbed his fists and twisted his arms around, intended to break them, but the demon jumped and rolled in the air, kicking her in her chest as he went. Buffy twirled around by the impact, and she used it to make a full spin to get back to the demon, and wreck his jaw with her fist. The impact made a satisfying cracking sound, and the demon staggered, howling in pain. Buffy raised her stake and was about to put the creature out if its misery, when it dove out of the circle, leaving her stake nothing but air.  
  
"Dammit! You yellow coward! Come back and turn to dust like a real vamp!" Buffy uttered in sheer frustration. However, she didn't have time to go on complaining for long, another demon attacked her from the side, and once again, she fought the creature with punches and kicks till the moment was there where she found an opportunity to stake him. She grabbed him by his leg after a failed attempt of the demon to boot her.  
  
"Okay, this time, I'm not gonna let you guys go away that easily. You wanne be part of the exiting world of wild cage fighting, be a least demony enough to stick around till the last round is over."  
  
She raised her stake and got grabbed by the waist by a pair of cold, vampire arms sticking through the barrier. The demon outside the ring pulled her against the invisible wall, and her back slammed against the cold surface, sending pain waves through her spine.  
  
As it turned out, the beachball had just gone solid again.  
  
Buffy tried to push her way out through the interlocking limps, but the demon was strong and hauled her back again. She banged her head against the magical ring turned brick wall, and decided that using sheer force wasn't the solution for her problem.  
  
She stabbed the demon's upper arm with her stake, making a jab large and mean enough to rupture arteries, and the vampire holed and let go. She moved out of his reach and saw how on the other side, the demon staggered away from the circle like a wounded animal, licking his wounds while he kept his raging eyes on her. The vampire she had been fighting and intended to dust before was nowhere to be seen and at her back, the comfortable warmth had already turned into a searing heat, as the flames had now spread itself halfway across the car and would soon reach the gas tank.  
  
Meanwhile, Willow had something of a panic attack. "Xander!" She yelled and tried to fire a bolt to hit the demon that had knocked the weapon out of her friend's hand and was now punching him in the gut with the brutality of a drunk, pissed off biker.  
  
A boot kicked the bow out of her hands. Then a vampire outside the ring grabbed her by her legs and pulled. Willow screamed and fell, face down, with her nose smashing into the asphalt.  
  
Xander tried to dodge, or fling a blow, or not to double in pain so the demon could prepare itself to give him another easy punch. He swayed his right arm back, putting as much velocity and power in his movement as he could give, and hit his attacker full in his face.  
  
"Ha! Take that you bloodsucking piece of scum -"  
  
He was cut short as the demon recovered with a simple swab to clean the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his hand, and then hurled another mean looking punch at him while exclaiming a raging roar.  
  
Xander shut his eyes and expected to see a hell of a lot of stars and perhaps the unpleasant sensation of his guts being relocated inside his stomach, but instead he heard the groaning of a demon in pain. As he opened his eyes, the demon was swept up by a blur of bleached blond hair and flapping black duster, and for once in a very long time, Xander was pleased to see their vampire ally turn up in their company.  
  
"Spike." Xander said, his voice still quivering from the pain after being used by the demon as a human punch bag. "Am I awkwardly glad to see you. We're in some serious trouble here."  
  
"You don't say." The blond vampire scoffed and grinned. There was no sign of the big biker type that had redone his innards, which struck Xander as odd.  
  
"Yeah, big bad mojo ring prevents us good guys from getting out, but the evil bloodsucking fiends like you can get in. They are nailing us with this. I thought we could still fight them since we still got the crossbows with wooden arrows, but apparently, in the totally rational world of black magic, wood is considered alive and therefore mortal. It can't get pass the barrier, and we can't kill the vamps outside the circle. Oh, and Giles' nostalgic car is about to explode." Xander sighed, desperate and looking at the vampire for help. "Things can't get much worse then this."  
  
"Oh yes, they can actually." Spike said, blinking his eyes and sucking in his cheeks, before he threw a punch at the human, hitting him in his lower jaw and sending him reeling over the ground.  
  
Xander tasted dirt and blood in mouth, as he struggled up and turned around, aggravated. "Spike! What are you doing you crazy son of a bitch! That fucking hurts!" Then he realized something, his eyes went wide and his mouth dropped, stunned as he was. Did Spike just hit him? On purpose? And he was still standing there, staring down at him wearing that stupid and content grin on his face without the chip giving him so much as a satisfying painful zap?  
  
It was as if the blond was not only capable of hurting him now, but also could read his mind. Or at least the baffled expression on Xander's face, that was. Spike picked the bleeding young man up from the ground. His piercing blue eyes looking right into the human's dark hazel ones, as his grin widened into a vindictive smile.  
  
"As I said whelp, things can actually get a hell of a lot worse." He morphed into game-face, his handsome features twisting and bulging till they became grotesque and fearsome, and the demon narrowed his yellow eyes at the human, a primitive growl running up its throat.  
  
"What - What happened to your chip? Why isn't it working?" Xander yelped as he felt his feet lose contact with the ground and his whole bodyweight sagging down from the collar of his shirt on which the vampire had grabbed hold on him.  
  
Spike chuckled maliciously; "God, you're not exactly the brightest idiot of the whole pack of idiots, are you?" and he shoved the human against the invisible wall, slamming his head against the solid structure a couple of times. Xander's head bobbed on his shoulders, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets as he was almost knocked unconscious.  
  
"Broken already?" The blond vampire mocked. "Bugger, I knew I should have asked for a football for Christmas instead of a big fat middle aged wanker to throw against the wall. You're not even bunching back, only getting these funny little shapes in your head."  
  
Spike felt a sharp edgy pain cut through his spine as something hard and ferocious connected with his back and launched him forward, away from Xander. The vampire lost his balance, but caught his fall by rolling over. He rolled back up into a crouching position, his features changing back into his own, glaring at the humans with a predatory look in his eyes.  
  
"Are you all right, Xander?" Buffy asked. She swirled around to face the wicked bad vampire that had threatened her friend. "You know, your gonna be so sorry for thrashing him up like th-"  
  
The rest of her pun caught in her throat as she finally saw who it was that she was facing up against.  
  
  
  
TBC 


End file.
